FaceTime vs. Face Time: How We Treat Screens and Media Use in Our Family

Becoming a parent chilled me out. While I kind of expected my default Type A, sometimes anxious, often obsessive personality to amplify once becoming responsible for a tiny human life — somehow, it didn’t. I have this innate confidence that I’m a really good mom, even when I’m not totally confident I’m doing the “right” thing. I’m grateful for a husband who truly co-parents and with whom I can have real conversations about the opportunities we want to create for our son - even if we sometimes disagree on how the guidelines we set for him, will either enable or deter those opportunities.

Since before we were expecting, we agreed we didn’t want to give our baby any screen time before age 2, and that we would have phone-free, ipad-free, TV-free family dinners. We also acknowledged that we didn’t know if we would feel differently once the kiddo arrived.

Now that he’s seven months old and is so much more aware and interested in every. single. thing. around him, it’s time to have another conversation about screen time. There are real reasons to keep your baby away from screens (as I say to my husband — “because, science”), but there other implications that are a much bigger conversation, that your pediatrician probably won’t weigh in on. Because the conversation about our babies and screens, is really about us and screens.

I love and agree with pretty much everything Mark Manson recently wrote in his “Smartphones are the New Cigarettes.” I love it so much, I’ve got to quote a chunk of it here: “And I asked myself, ‘Why does that bother me so much? Why do phones, in general, seem to bug me so much? Why does it bother me when my wife pulls out her phone when we’re walking down the street together? Why do I fervently hate with a passion people who hold up their phones and record half a concert? What’s the deal?’… If you think about it, our attention is the only thing we truly own in our lives. Our possessions can go away. Our bodies can be compromised. Our relationships can fall apart. Even our memories and intellectual capacity fade away. But the simple ability to choose what to focus on — that will always be ours.”

Sigh. I feel so heavy thinking about the impact of being tethered to our screens, and the implications it has for my child. So I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the environment we’re creating for him and the role media and screens play in our family life. Just because I’m not planning on handing my kid an iPad in a restaurant or sitting him in front of the TV anytime soon, doesn’t mean he isn’t still being directly affected by the way we (and pretty much anyone interacting with him) pay attention to our screens — hence Manson’s “second-hand smoke” analogy.

I consider myself mindful of my media use and I’m still disturbed by it. My phone is with me pretty much at all times. I catch up on articles, work emails and Amazon refills while the kid nurses, but quickly stash my phone if he looks in its direction. I use my iPhone to take pictures and video of him an average of 7 times a day, and often make a mental note that I don’t need to record everything (but he’s so damn cute, it’s really hard not to). He has gotten so used to it, he smiles whenever he sees the back of my phone pointed in his direction. He’s even FaceTimed with my grandfather a couple times, even though I had sworn against it. But the TV is almost never on during his waking hours and I try to be in another room with my laptop, if working from home.

I’m not categorically opposed to babies being exposed to screens and media, but I’m terrified of the implications of how so many of us are constantly connected and consumed by our phones. It’s a prominent part of our present day reality and I want to be intentional about the role it plays in my own life, my relationships, and my home. What I want to do is give my child access in a thoughtful, measured and responsible way, that allows him to use it as a tool, rather than be totally consumed by it.

I want my kid living and experiencing real conversations, real connections and real boredom. And I want to model that behavior, because that is the only way it will work. I have to model that behavior, because it makes me feel sane and present to my own life. I want to be mindful of where I’m placing my attention, especially when I’m with my son, who is looking to me and with me for shared experiences.

There are so many reasons to put down our smartphones when we’re with our children. My biggest one is that I want to give my son the opportunity to experience a life that isn’t interrupted by, or worse dependent on, the easy access, everything at your fingertips, instant gratification that our devices have us addicted to. We literally can’t sit on the toilet for 90 seconds without scrolling through Instagram. We Google our questions before we really think about them. And we swipe through other people’s lives, rather than living our own. Tonight, I left my phone in another room for almost two hours, while loving on my kid. I fell into a trance listening to his breath and slurping while nursing. When he looked up into my eyes, I was there to meet him with a smile, instead of staring over his shoulder at my text messages. It was pure joy and I was actually mentally there for all of it.

Relationships require focus. Uncomfortable conversations require patience. Problem solving is a vital skill. In life, we cannot have every single thing we want, every single time we want it. Our relationships with our phones teach us otherwise.

I will continue to leverage technology to inspire and create meaningful experiences in real life. But the minute I feel myself zoning out for too long on one screen or another (or three simultaneously), I need to come back to this conversation and revisit the boundaries that feel healthy for me and my family.