Boredom Stew

I miss the days when Sesame Street came on at four o'clock on channel 13, and if you missed it, it was too damn bad.  You had to wait until the next day to see the next one.  No Tivo, no fast forward, no Netflix streaming an entire series at a time.  No dvds, no blu-ray, no You Tube.  No iTunes, no downloads, no Wii.  No DS's, no X-Boxes, no Nintendo.  No smartphones, no Droids, no iPhones - just one big white dumb phone with a 17 foot long stretched out cord in the kitchen.  No caller ID, no call waiting, no voicemail.  Just a droning busy signal that meant exactly that - we're busy.  Have some Patience and Wait.  Then if you really want to talk to me, try dialing again.  If you're lucky, my mom will let me talk to you for three minutes before she picks up the extension to tell me my phone time's done.

No texting, no sexting, no forwards, no email.  Just notes scrawled on looseleaf and painstakingly folded into origami-like structures, only to be passed between desks and in halls, to be stashed away safely to savor in private, read again and again.  Saved in a shoebox and treasured.  Letters written by hand on blue airmail paper with tiny foreign stamps that looked like paintings for a dollhouse. 

No TVs in restaurants, bars, lobbies.  No screens on buses, subways, trains, on each seat on airplanes.  No commercials in stores, malls, movie theaters, while waiting on line at the bank, for crying out loud!  Have we really become so incapable of handling a few moments of waiting, of nothing to do?  My fear is that yes, we have, and we are training our children to completely lose touch with their ability to be still, silent, patient and - GASP - dare I even say it? - BORED.

I am sitting here writing about the evils of technology on my cherished laptop to publish on my electronic blog.  I totally get the irony.  Nor am I some uber-vigilante mom living in the woods without electricity, making my kids whittle their nightly dinner forks out of the nearest tree branches.  We own a Wii, an iTouch, cellphones, TVs, and two computers.  My husband will be the first to tell you that I am passionately in love with my iTouch.  There are days he regrets giving it to me.  (I think he is just jealous - he lost his).  Those of you who know me know full well the struggles I face daily with my children because of these items.  The Wii was banned for months after it became such an obsession for my youngest (who at the time was 4, by the way).  I showed my firstborn hour upon hour of Baby Einstein videos - he even ate in front of the TV many a night.  Believe me, I am not here to judge. 
I am here, however, to sound a call.

The challenges we face as parents are unlike any of those who came before us.  We truly are pioneers in this age of Electronic Overload.  Our children are bombarded daily with messages, both emotional and social, based on the devices they do/don't/should/might soon get.  Their very self-worth at times is at stake, as I am learning, as my ten year old goes to sleepovers surrounded by kids who bring cellphones and iTouches and lie in their sleeping bags until 2am, staring at their screens and listening to their music, lying next to each other, yet alone - plugged in, tuned out.  My son, who doesn't yet own a phone or iTouch, lay quietly, listening to the hum of headphones and watching the flashes of light on the ceiling until he finally fell asleep.  No giggles, no whispering, no ghost stories. 

This is to say nothing of the destruction that can occur when a text, email, Facebook message or picture is used to hurt or bully a child.   It spreads like wildfire and leaves deep ugly scars.

I am here because I want to strengthen my resistance to the siren song of the screen.  At least, on behalf of the children.  I am scared for them. 
I have seen 18 month olds in grocery carts with iPhones.  Two four year olds I know just received iTouches for their birthdays.  I have seen a mother with her very young son out for lunch, texting away on her Blackberry while her son played on his with not one word passing between them, even after the food came.

I have actually heard my children and their friends say the following:
"If we play Legos for three minutes, then can we play Wii?"
"I just don't like playing if there are no electronics."
"We already did human things - now can we play Wii?"
 
I have been cajoled, yelled at, cried to, and yes, even bribed with real coins from a 5 year old's pocket, to allow them to play video games.  I get it.  It's a truly frustrating and exhausting battle.

But you know what?  So is parenting.  And like most things in life, doing it right often times means doing it the hard way.  Drawing a line, setting a standard, having a backbone.  I have found through my own slipshod experience, it is easier to hold the reins tight and slacken as needed.  Yes, my sons get mad at me.  Yes, there are arguments and tears and I get SO freaking sick of saying 'No - it's a school day, you can have some Wii time on the weekend', or 'No - you know our rules, no Wii on playdates at our house, ever.  PLAY.  That is what you are supposed to be doing.  You are ten/seven/five years old.'

Here's the deal.  If we don't carve out spaces for our children to hear silence and to be still, they will not exist.   The daily inundation of noise and internet and stimulation and interruption is constant with no end in sight.  When you say no to an electronic device, instead of looking at it as depriving them of something, let's look at it as giving them a chance to breathe.  For in actuality what you are doing is creating a haven, a safe place to retreat from the hubbub.  Don't worry - they will have the rest of their lives to sail the grand seas of Electronicdom.  It will all come in good time.  They will be exposed to more than you ever dreamed of, more than you ever wanted them to be.  I promise you, they won't miss out.  If only they could.  But for now, I have a little bit of control and influence over their tiny lives, and I am choosing to exercise it before they are taller than I am.

So, what can they do, you ask?  Well, what did WE do?  How did we ever survive childhood without Angry Birds or Bloons Tower Defense 4?  Hmm...let's remember...

Hopscotch, kickball, hide-and-seek, tag.
Riding bikes, rollerskates, skateboards, scooters.
Friendship bracelets, friendship pins, making mixtapes.
Checkers, Monopoly (still a great game, by the way), Tic Tac Toe, Scrabble, Hangman.
Drawing, painting, Shrinky Dinks, Colorforms.
Imaginative play (!!! You know, like playing house or firemen or doctor)
Reading, writing, playing an instrument, writing a song
Pen pals, selling lemonade (or my memory of making painted rocks to sell out of my red wagon, pulling it down the dead end street I grew up on).
Listening to music, but together in our rooms, reading liner notes and laughing.
Any number of cool board games/puzzles/Madlibs.
Legos, blocks, train sets, Barbies, dollhouses.
Truth or Dare, Mother May I, Simon Says, Red Light Green Light.
Making a haunted house in the basement.
Starting a band.
Exploring the woods/going on a hike/to a park/playground.
Making homemade playdough/cookies/ice cream.
Sprinklers or just a garden hose.
 If you can't think of anything else, sometimes it's just not so bad to lie on the couch and Do Nothing.
(A quilt in the backyard works quite nicely for this activity, too). 

Ideas bubble forth from boredom - it is really the broth of creativity. 
Personally, I am looking forward to tasting my children's creative stew. 
I wanna see what they add to the pot.