Ranty McRanty Pants

[merlinofchaos]

I saw a tweet today that's being retweeted by at least a few:
"In a store, shopping. Seeing too many really young kids being medicated with iPads. Please, parents, give them time to make their own dreams"

Sigh. This made me profoundly depressed and angry at the same time. Also, I feel the need for expletives, so please don't click if foul language offends you.

Look, parenting is hard, okay? The world is full of shit that we'd maybe rather not expose our kids to. But the reality is, we can't put our kids in bubbles. It's simply not good for them. We have to make some decisions. We have to be able to do our stuff.

But holy fuck, asshole. "Medicating"? Fuck you. Fuck you in the goat ass. Medicating is when I give my kid drugs. And hopefully it's because they need them. When I give them antibiotics because they have a bacterial infection; when I give them mucinex because they have a horrible cough I want to relieve. When I give my kid albuterol so he can breathe because his lungs are so constricted he can barely get air. That is medicating my kids.

If you're trying to draw a parallel between people giving their kids ritalin because they're ADHD? Well, that's medicating too. Letting a child use an iPad? That's a choice of activity that a parent may make. There are LOTS of activities. But I'll tell you this: In a shopping cart, in a store, I am not going to have much luck giving my kid a notebook and asking him or her to write a story. I'm not going to be able to give my kid legos, or tinkertoys, or playdough or any number of constructive toys, because they don't fit in a shopping cart. In a shopping cart, my kid's basically got a couple of options. Sit quietly and wait while we shop (hahahahahaha), try to find something to do, or be given one of a very few options.

To be fair, I've never actually given my kid iPad time while we're out like that, but that has more to do with the fact that I don't want the iPad shattered into a million pieces in the middle of a grocery store. Mostly the iPad stays at home, and we ration iPad time the same way we ration TV time. And when it comes down to it, well-chosen interactive iPad apps have a lot more going for them than TV and have a lot more staying power than most books. I personally find that books work well and best when I'm there reading to or with the kid. Alas, I can't do that when I'm cooking, or cleaning up the kitchen, or any number of activities that I have to do in my daily life that make it difficult to give my children personalized attention at that moment.

Luckily, I have a LOT of things that my kids like doing, and I can vary it up. Reuben loves the playdough, and right now Charlotte is really loving her Goldiblocks. They both love the legos (Duplos, in Reuben's case) and the little wooden train set.

But they also both love the iPad, and they beg for it. We try not to give them TOO much time on it, but have you SEEN the iPad apps? Interactive Reading Rainbow! Alphabet application that helps teach your kids about the letters, how they're pronounced, and how to draw them! Holy crap I wish I'd had stuff like that when I was little!

Anyway, this rant really is a "Shut your Fucking Piehole, Jackhole" rant and try not to judge until you've actually seen more than 15 seconds of someone else's family life. I know, it's HARD, when you're up on your fucking ivory tower high chair being the God of All You Survey, but fuck yourself anyway.

Comments

[clayrobeson.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!

[jcfiala.livejournal.com]

Eh, you know how it is. Folks want you to raise your kids the same way they were raised half a century ago, when it was pointed sticks and mud.

[sensational.livejournal.com]

Amen. Also, was the original tweet by a nonparent? My guess is that or a stay at home mom.

(I love many sahms but yeah)

[esmerel.livejournal.com]

I'd guess someone without kids, and the profile suggested it was a guy.

[hackmonkey (from livejournal.com)]

I can see both sides. Father of a 5 & 7 yr old myself, I readily admit that all children are different. We just returned from a trip to Disney World for spring break with the kids. They loved it, but I was surprised to see how many kids (over 5 yrs old) were being wheeled around in strollers and playing on tablets and devices, oblivious to their surroundings at the moment. Of course my perspective is skewed, I didn't observe these kids all day, maybe they were just taking a break, or coming down from some kind of melt down?

We are a geek family, we had 2 laptops, 2 tablets and 2 handhelds back at the hotel. These devices were critical to maintaining sanity on the 4 hour plane ride there and 5 hours back, plus the lay overs; but I wouldn't have dreamed of bringing them to the park! We also kicked our kids out of the strollers when they were 3. So I personally was a bit saddened to see so many kids plugged in, rather than experiencing the magic around them. Even if there was more to the story as to why they were heads down in a game, rather than heads up in awe.

[merlinofchaos]

At Disneyland even at 5 I consider the stroller a win. Sprout isn't really up for walking quite that much and we are there to have fun, not fight with a tired child. If I had older kids where we might be spending significant time at rides she can't or won't go on, an iPad would occupy her while she's waiting but we've never had to resort to that since we don't need to do that.

I can imagine there should be limits and I certainly advocate being smart about it all. There's got to be a balance and what that is varies from family to family.

[silkiemom.livejournal.com]

The last time we were at Disneyland, we took a stroller for the almost 8-year old to use in the evenings. We were hitting the park as soon as it opened each day, and the early morning entrances when we could. We ate dinner outside, then came back into the park with the stroller. He would fall asleep in lines, but it meant that we could (as a whole family) stay at the park later. He couldn't quite keep up with all the walking the 10- and 12-year olds could do.

We took Nintendos for them to play with in long lines, but I also took books that I read aloud to them, and they liked that a lot. We are lucky that the older two kids still loved hearing humorous kids' books read out loud so I could find a books that they all liked. But that was also limited to how long my voice would hold out. Some of those lines are pretty darned long. :)

My oldest is also easily overstimulated and would ask to go back to the hotel a lot. Seeing him with his nose buried in a book looks a lot like he's ignoring the magic around him, but it's his way of decompressing, since he can't really pace in line.

So, yeah, every family is different.

[esmerel.livejournal.com]

We're also good about making sure we say "It's going to be about X long of a wait to get on this ride. Are you sure you can handle that?"

[wildpaletz.livejournal.com]

I would love to know your list of favorite apps for recently-turned-2-year-olds! We also will be/are limiting the iPad time, but I'd like to have more than 2 apps on hand. And an alphabet learning app sounds perfect for her at this age, as she's interested in letters but basically doesn't know them at all.

[esmerel.livejournal.com]

Endless Alphabet is awesome. It's silly and has monsters running around and making noises (the letters turn into funny monsters when you touch them and say the letter sounds). Magnetic ABC is kind of cool. Reading Rainbow is awesome, though R is kind of young for it yet, I think. It's subscription based though.

There's a couple of games you can find under 'Toddler seek and find', which generally have one level for free and you can get the full app to get others. Each 'level' is a picture with stuff hidden in it, and you tap around in the picture to make stuff happen. In one, there's a room with a toaster and a dog. You tap the toaster and the toast flies out of the toaster and the dog snaps it up. R LOOOOVES it.

We also like Glow Draw and Crayola Paint and Create. TapDots is simple (basic 1-10 counting, draws a simple picture which then becomes a real picture)

We also have the PBS Kids app - it gives you easy access to a lot of the PBS kids video content. While you might not want her watching videos all the time, at least it's all safe for her to watch. R has been watching a lot of Super Why!

[wildpaletz.livejournal.com]

Awesome, thank you! She can count up to...um...something higher than eleven (she's not keen on 16-18), but doesn't know how to add more than 2, if that makes sense? (We're working on 3.)

Right now we have an animated/ toddler-controlled version of the Monster at the End of this Book, and something called Furry Friends that has an AI-ish-thing called Lenord that repeats what you say and does some other tricks. We have to explain that "Lenord is sleeping" so she doesn't play with him all the time.

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

I'm rally tired of telling people that "the internet" (or the larger info revolution) is NOT the first-impression snapshot from the day they got there,. That's a snapshot of the beginnings of an avalanche in progress.

I submit one of my current thought experiments (adjust appropriately for non-US school systems): Imagine a standard 17-year old high school senior, probably with a tablet. Imagine a standard 21-year old fresh college graduate, probably with a serious laptop. Imagine a 25-year old who's out trying to pay the rent, probably with a variety of stuff at home online, and stuff at work, too. And for good measure, a 13-year old who's about to head off to high school . . .
Picture each of these people when they were the same age, and look at the tech they lived with. Four years makes a difference, and eight years is completely different. And things are not slowing down.

So these long, straight line extrapolations are even more ridiculous than other straight line extrapolations.

A couple of months ago, I was in a restaurant, and a couple of tables away form me was a mother with a 4-year old, who was playing with an iPad. I sat there thinking that that tablet would be the embarrassingly primitive and underpowered machine he would be nostalgic about in twenty or thirty years, as his first. I really can't imagine that world.

[justin michel (from livejournal.com)]

You and your wife both rule as parents, and don't let anyone tell you different, as, there are a billion ways to play Donkey Kong (I don't skin cats).

Secondly, the goat line made me spit out my coffee, so extra bonus!

Thirdly though, I would've went with something like "douchebag" instead of "Jackhole", as two holes don't make a right.

Keep up the great coding!

[merlinofchaos]

I have come to realize that douche is somewhat of a sexist slur and I've decided to try to use it less. I'd say stop using it entirely but it turns out it's pretty deeply embedded in my lexicon. But when I catch myself, I stop. I mean, it's kind of a token effort because most of our slurs are sexually charged and it's hard to find good ones that art, but at least it makes me switch things up.

Jackhole is a lot more gender neutral. And i dunno, it makes me picture someone stuffing a handfull of jacks into a hole.