thankful#90: "How to Miss a Childhood"

I came across a blog post late last night after putting Kinsley to bed titled "How to Miss a Childhood". I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. I think it has stuck with me because I have been thinking about this very thing quite a bit lately anyway. I see people on their phones at every point throughout my day: at the playground when their kids are running around, in the locker room at the pool, in their cars, while walking around in the grocery store, even in the entryway of Kinsley's preschool building. I've noticed streams of posts on facebook on people's walls that span hours of the day, meaning that they are constantly updating. It makes me sad. I've thought about how thankful that I am that I don't have a fancy phone - I CAN'T be surfing the internet or chatting on facebook or exploring pinterest or checking my email at all hours of my day. This blog post talks about just that - deciding that being on your phone is more important than being truly present in each moment of your day and, therein, missing life - specifically, those of your children.

Read the whole post here.

When I was reading it, I couldn't help but continue to think how thankful I am that I don't have a fancy phone. Sure, I text my friends throughout my day, but I try not to ever put it before what I'm doing with the girls. That's why there will be 20 minute gaps between my texts - I do it when I can fit it in. I don't answer my phone when it rings if I'm reading the girls a story or eating a meal with them and I certainly don't text when I'm in the car. Really, I rarely talk on the phone at all.

But then I got to the bottom and read this line in regards to the purpose of the post:

My hope is that this post inspires one person to become aware of how often he or she uses the phone (or computer) in the presence of a child.

Two words caught my attention and immediately gave me a knot in my stomach: "or computer". I'm guilty! I may not have my phone on me at every moment of my day, I may not be on facebook when I'm also at the playground, I may not be pinteresting when I'm walking Kinsley home from school, but I'm guilty of having lost moments because I've been on my computer. I've sat down at the computer while the girls are watching their reading video so that I can shoot out a few emails. I've set them up to read books or color for 15 minutes so that I can set up an upload of pictures to Costco or even facebook and then I return to read or color with them, but that's 15 minutes that I've lost with them. It's 15 minutes that they see me at the computer and not with them. And for what? So that Costco has my pictures sooner? I won't be printing them anytime soon, so what's the rush?! And why do I need to check my email when the girls are around? I'm not working a job that needs to communicate anything to me during the day. Sure, it's nice to be able to run to the computer really quickly to look something up - a quick how-to for a recipe, directions to a playdate, make sure I'm not missing something on our calendar, or even the answer to a question of Kinsley's that I don't have in my head. But I don't need to do personal things when they're around. There are moments most days where I have a tiny chunk of time to myself when Kinsley is at school and Dagny is napping (on those days she decides to) - those are the times that I should be using to check my email. When they are tucked into their beds at night - that's when I should be uploading my pictures and logging my runs.

I didn't even have a cell phone until my sophomore year of college and I certainly didn't have internet that was fast enough to want to be on the computer for anything other than writing papers for school (or IMing with Kevin because that's when we had to actually pay by the minute for a long-distance phone call, but that's a whole different post). Now this type of technology has become a huge part of everyday life. It's a little ridiculous to think of the role that it plays in our day-to-day and even hour-to-hour or minute-to-minute communication and relationships with the people in our lives. Until I read this post I didn't realize just how it was taking away from my attention to Kinsley and Dagny - I'd thought about it, but it just didn't click.

I am still thankful that I don't have a fancy phone. I am also thankful, though, that I've realized that I do take moments away from the girls to be on my computer - and that's just as bad if not worse. I've likely missed some precious moments that I will never get back. But I'll be damned if I'm going to miss any more merely because I'm staring at a computer screen instead of my girls.

So, Rachel Macy Stafford, mission accomplished. And thank you.