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The Distinct Privilege Of Low-Tech Parenting
I swore I’d keep my kids away from screens. Here’s what keeping that resolution really looks like.
I’m already cringing at myself.
There is, after all, simply no way to confess that you keep your children’s screen time to the bare minimum without sounding insufferably sanctimonious. It’s one of those things you pontificate on before you become a parent, when you’re well-rested and clueless. The inevitable about-face is almost a rite of passage. Few things make veteran parents laugh like non-parents’ impassioned declarations of what they’ll do differently when they have kids. As a mom, actually sticking to such a conviction almost feels like a betrayal of my ilk. Wholly average on the outside, I suddenly become strange and exotic when I let slip my Luddite tendencies.
After all, if I keep my kids away from screens, what other aspects of mainstream life could I be shunning? Do I refuse to shop in grocery stores, only feeding my children what I grow in my garden? Am I anti-vaccine? Do I homeschool? No, absolutely not, and never in a million years, in that order. We just don’t happen to do much screen time.
It’s not as though my children never see screens. Yes, I do have memories of physically shielding my newborn daughter’s eyes…