Cell Phone Mama

I ran in to my local Staples the other day to buy ink cartridges and smiled to see a small boy, perhaps 3 years old, following behind his well dressed mother as she pushed a cart towards the checkout. The little boy was sobbing silently and staring down at his little blue crocs, stumbling forward to keep up with his mother’s rapid pace. She was talking with someone on her cell phone and didn’t even glance down at the boy until the checkout clerk mentioned that he had picked up a candy bar or other trinket in the checkout line and was leaving the store with the item unpaid. She paused in her conversation, wrestled the object from the child, and proceeded through the electronically activated exit expecting the boy to trail in her wake. Like a duck who doesn’t realize that the last chick never made it off the curb, this mom headed out to the parking lot, phone still attached to her head, oblivious to her son who was stranded on the other side of the automatic door, too physically small to trigger the opening mechanism.

He was only feet away from me and I watched to see how long it would take for the mom to realize the child wasn’t in tow. Angry at first that he had lost his prize, he quickly panicked once he comprehended that his mom was on the other side of a glass door he could not open. And not only was she on the other side of the door – she was leaving without him. The mom did eventually pause from her cell phone conversation and return to collect the boy – but I don’t think she spoke more than five words to him during the entire ordeal.

What did that child take away from that experience at the impressionable age of three? That in order to gain his mother’s attention he should steal something? That his mother’s cell phone conversation was more important than his own safety?

What did his eyes see in that colorful place filled with paper and pens and markers, stickers and bulletin boards and cushy office chairs when his eyes were transfixed on the floor? What teachable moments were lost? I don’t mean to mommy-bash here – (dads can be equally guilty) – and, after all, even in the 60’s my mom spent considerable time on the kitchen phone when I was growing up (the springy cord stretched straight on the yellow appliance). But once we left the house, got in the car, drove to the store, she was a captive audience to question and engage and explain the wonders of the world I lived in. A recent article by Jane E. Brody in the New York TImes “From Birth, Engage Your Child With Talk,” speaks to the all too common conversation gap between parents and children at the tenderest of ages. No longer tethered to that wall mounted kitchen phone, parents today spend a considerable amount of time electronically engaged elsewhere.
And when they are so engaged they are losing the opportunity to teach, engage and connect with their own children.

A good friend of mine once said that driving her child to school every day had proven such a valuable experience – the “down time” to engage in conversation while sitting in traffic – her daughter would probably never ride the bus again (and she never did). I think of that when I pick my children up from school. I meet them with a smile (always – no matter how awful my day has been) and “how was your day?” I only take a phone call when it is absolutely necessary – my children know that cell conversations when they are in the car is the exception and not the rule. I engage them in conversation – sometimes – and sometimes we sit in comfortable silence (no radio even). So when I pick up friends of theirs I notice how uncomfortable they are having a conversation with an adult – and no wonder since they have grown up never engaging in conversation with their own parents. They don’t know how to banter and pun – or sadly, how to decompress to an adult after a stressful day.

It’s funny how we can be so connected electronically – so needy of constant contact with peers and friends and colleagues – yet be so very alone when we are with the people who should matter the most and, unwittingly, foster that disconnectedness with our children.


About Jeanne Bernish

News junkie. Advocate for high ability children and encouraging girls in pursuing STEM fields. Believer in the power of technology to transform education. Find me on Twitter @JeanneBernish.
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