The photo is part of her personal reading collection. She LOVES to read. She devours books, sometimes staying up until the wee hours of the morning to finish one. I can’t even be mad about it. I am so in love with her love of reading and learning and imagining and dreaming and doing. She amazes me. All the time. I have felt so defensive of her. Part of me is not proud of that. I’ve worked as her speech translator for years. I have worried and cried and prayed that this girl with so many big ideas would be able to communicate them in a way that she felt comfortably understood. Sometimes we still work on this. Her mind works faster than her mouth can keep up.
Tonight we talked about so many things. It started with decluttering. It ended with sweet proclamations of love. I don’t have enough of these conversations with her. Tonight reminded me of that. She is ready. There is so much for us to talk about.
The part that really caught me was an honest discussion about screen time. I told her that my latest phone update gave me a screen time tracking bit. And after my first week with this new notification for screen time, I am completely mortified of my daily average.
She welcomed the discussion and said something that struck me to the core: “When you were kids, you could do whatever you wanted, you could ride your bike anywhere. Now, we’re just turning into lifeless zombies.” She got emotional when she was saying this. She felt it so deeply.
I felt it deeply.
We are in such a transitionary period. We’re learning how to personally deal with and how to raise children with technology in real time. Things are changing so quickly. I have a love-hate relationship with my phone. I am part of the last generation who knows what childhood/adolescence was like before social media.
I want nothing more than long days of boredom and just figuring out how to fill time - I want the time period of my childhood for my children. But the change happened so quickly; I know they can’t even comprehend.
I told her that Jake and I were in the middle of thinking through hard things. We LOVE our neighbors, and we LOVE our home, but I would NEVER feel safe allowing our girls to ride their bikes solo to our neighborhood park. I don’t want to live in a homogenous neighborhood. I don’t want to be in a place where everyone is the same, but I also don’t want to be followed by mentally unstable men yelling inappropriate things at me while I’m walking with my daughter.
I don’t want to be afraid of people. I’m trying to practice what I preach. I’m trying to lean into a life of really loving people, not just giving lip service to loving. And then unstable people follow me and stray dogs chase me. And I’m like WTF universe, I’m trying so hard here!!!! Take away my fear, take away my fear, take away my fear! I ABHOR gated communities. Truly, I do. But I also find myself longing for them because of how freaking terrified I am of raising daughters in this world sometimes. I know how dangerous it can be.
I know from personal experiences as a child, as a young teenager, and as a 30+ year old woman. This world can be terrifying for girls, teenagers, young women, and women of any age. Terrifying. Shaming. Defiling. I know it can be the same for males all along the age spectrum as well, but for women.... Over and over and over again throughout their lives.
I can’t articulate this to my ten year old. I won’t. But our conversation tonight was so free and so honest. I fell in love with her all over again.
I need to do better. I need to be more engaged with my real life and less engaged with a screen. I want to be more engaged with my real life and less engaged with a screen. But how? I’m saying all of this as I type these words into the Notes app on my phone. I need figure out how to give more freedom to my daughters without feeling irresponsible.
I want to be a leader in a world with more love. Sometimes love is even more terrifying than fear. I am acknowledging that here. But my daughter feels like she and her peers are lifeless zombies. I DO NOT want that for her or them.
I am pronouncing my desire to be fully present, and also acknowledging that it is really hard sometimes.
I am also acknowledging that the deepest desire of my heart is to create and live a life with my Dearest Ones. I DO NOT want my children to be addicted to screens. I want them to be addicted to the earth and experiences, and people. I want this for myself as well.
The screen time app caused me to be horrified at the time I am on my phone as well. I finally got the courage and took the Facebook app off my phone. It cut my time in half. I resolved to let myself get bored and turn to something else. I wish it was reading, or something good for my brain. So far it has just been searching for my children in our home. I find them watching TV...I sit with them. We're working on it.
ReplyDeleteYou're a good mom. Your family is lucky to have you. You'll all figure it out together.
PS I live in Mormon suburbia. My kids don't go many places by themselves either. Definitely different than when I grew up. I spent my days exploring. I wish my kids could/wanted to do the same.