Raising Children in the Digital Age

I'm pretty sure you could say that my generation will be the first raising children from birth in a truly digital era. It's intimidating.
My own childhood was just barely dotted with technology. I remember my mom and Julie on the phone for hours, our extra-long phone cord wrapping around walls as my mom laughed and laughed with her best friend. We thought we hated it then, but the memory is sweet. I could always find her by her tether, and hearing her say, "No, I really need to go now" is something I now say as our own kids are wailing in the background while I talk to Julie's daughter, Katie, about the funny and tragic parts of parenting.

I remember our expansive collection of 30's, 40's and 50's movies, all on VHS. Nina and I could sit for hours watching The Thin Man, Rogers and Hammerstein, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. We really only watched very old movies and I still think we were so much the better for it. We were too busy feeding animals, 4-Hing, dancing, hiking the Olympics, hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa, traveling and really living. I remember being read aloud to until I was well into my teens. Mom and Grandma and Grandpa all believed so strongly in the power of reading aloud, and boy, did we reap the benefits! Nina and I loved listening to Grandma Susie read from The Book of Virtues, hearing Mom laugh through The Phantom Tollbooth, and thinking about our blessings as we listened to The Endless Steppe. We were immersed in the world of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Louisa May Allcott. What good fortune, to be raised by people who truly understood how books can transform a child's mind and heart. When I look back on my childhood, I'm so very aware that we had such a wonderful childhood. It was innocent as long as it could be, it was full of happiness and surprise and my memories of it now are hazy and comforting.

Raising kids today is different. Mama carries an iPhone, communicates via email and text, doesn't carry maps and shows blips of history on YouTube. Is that okay? I just don't know. I know that my own "village" must have had the same kinds of questions about other things as they were raising me, and I think I had a wonderful childhood and am a thriving adult. But it still doesn't calm my nerves. Is it okay to consult my phone so often? Is it okay to watch my children play as I send emails? Is it any different than bygone days when Mother would work on her correspondence? (Don't get me wrong, I do that too...is there anything better than a handwritten note arriving in the mail?) Is it okay to let them watch Nick Jr vs full-length Disney films? Should we avoid TV altogether? Is it acceptable to read aloud from a Kindle, or are real books part of the experience? Will they have any imaginations left if anything they want to see or experience can be conjured by Google?

Maybe I'm the only one who has panic attacks over these things. Do I spend far too much time worrying about the manner in which I mold our young breed, or is the world not worrying enough? (For the record, I'm pretty sure the world's not worrying enough.) I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm a young parent of young children. Maybe it's as simple as ordering The Phantom Tollbooth. It could be. Thank God we have Amazon now.




(Okay, I was done, but now I have a rant. I do try to GO to the library, but I find that they never have the books I want. I'm not looking for totally obscure books here. Maybe I'm just lazy, but Amazon is SO the way to go. I'd rather just order the darn thing than wait 3 weeks for 6 people to finish the book. By that time I forgot I even placed the hold on the book in the first place, and then I've racked up $15 in fines and can't check it out anyway. End rant.)