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

[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?"