I've been thinking about how each generation of children we raise lives in a different world than the one before it, and how that affects parenting those kids. I have three kids who would be considered young Millenials and one that would be considered GenZ. I know various factors contributed to their style of upbringing, but with the rate of change being as drastic as it is in this age of rapidly advancing technologies, even in the five year gap between my third and fourth children (both being girls) I noticed a difference. This main difference was the hand held pocket personal computer and communication device known more commonly in this country as the cell phone. And, I'm not just talking about my youngest's possession of one and how that affected her life, but of my own.
I put off having cell phones in our home as long as I possibly could. My husband was issued a flip phone for work, but the rest of us did without phones, and no one thought to ask for one because they were yet to become commonplace among their peers. We did have the family computer in the living room, and we all took our turns to do schoolwork or writing projects, play games from DVDs like Magic School Bus and I Spy, Lego Harry Potter and LOTR, watch YouTube videos, download music, and play Club Penguin when those online activities came along. Often there would be more than one kid sitting at the computer at a time, sharing their experience together. One of my kids was loaned a Game Boy in Grade Five from a friend, and when I saw how addicted he became I asked him to give it back and never borrow it again. My older daughter somehow talked us into letting her get a Nintendo DS with the digital pen thingy when she was a pre-teen, but she never seemed to become as addicted as her brother had to the Game Boy. My goal was always for my children to develop their 'real world' interests first and use the digital gadgets as a tool for relaxation and entertainment on a limited basis.
I remember waiting in the elementary school yard for my youngest. A woman asked me if I was on Facebook. I told her, ugh no, that if I wanted to communicate with people from high school I would do it the old fashioned way - I wouldn't. A couple of years later my eldest who was in high school asked if he could get a Facebook account. I told him yes, but I would get one, too, and then he would have to be my 'friend' on the site. Facebook was this scary unknown to me then, and I feared losing awareness of what my son was up to. Little did I know the only thing he would use it for was posting music videos and messaging friends about social gatherings. He was the first to leave the site a few years later, too. To him, Facebook was lame already. Not so for me, I found. To my surprise, it was actually really fun to reconnect with old school-mates, my large, scattered family, and acquaintances in this limited way. For many of us it became a way to cheer each other on from afar, and to make each other laugh. People were sharing their travels, their kids' achievements, their health struggles, and their hilarious daily foibles. I soon became rather addicted to all the daily updates, and anyone who is 'friends' with me on Facebook knows I am a regular contributor. I do know my life would be lonelier without it, especially during Covid when digital connection became so vital to many of us. I know it seems I digress. We were talking about cell phones, but social media is a huge part of their use.
I remember the day I told my husband I couldn't put off having a cell phone any longer. My job was requiring my use of one. We went to the Koodo kiosk at the mall and signed me up. By that time, flip phones were not the norm any longer. The phone I chose had a touch screen and so, in addition to being connected to the cellular network, it hooked up to our home WiFi. My carrier was Shaw, so free WiFi was available in lots of places. Unlike with the computer, I could lie down on the couch and read articles, scroll Facebook, and message people. I'm not going to lie, that was a revelation. One by one, my three older kids got phones as well, although they were well into their late teens. When all three of my older children had moved away to attend college or university, my youngest and I thought, with her busy schedule, that she should get a basic phone, too, so we could communicate on pick-up times from her theatre rehearsals in the next town. If I remember correctly, she was thirteen when I got a new phone and she inherited my old one. Fortunately, my youngest was too busy at the time to become completely addicted to her screen, and she was very handy as a tech assistant when her dad or I couldn't figure something out on our phones.
The other day I was remembering my youngest and I sitting in our living room when she still lived at home, both looking at our phones. I compared it to the days when she or I, or other members of our family, would sit at the computer in the living room, whatever we were doing open and available to the rest of the family, opposed to both of us isolated with our little screens in our own little worlds. Most of the time she was chatting with her friends and theatre colleagues, while I scrolled social media or read articles, or chatted with family and friends of my own, losing track of time. I wondered how this change had affected our lives in a deeper sense. I know teenagers deserve to have privacy at times, but to be honest, I think personal phones have given them too much privacy and too much information available 24/7 to absorb - a lot of it sad and/or alarming. Of course, the difference from my own girlhood is huge. I couldn't even have a private telephone conversation in our house, the corded phone being on the wall in the very center of a small house full of up to nine people at any given time. And, TV news was limited to an hour or so a night. I also wondered how my time spent isolating myself with my phone made a difference to her life, or was it just normal to her - part of the culture of the late 2000's that she took for granted? I know there are scholars out there studying the effect of technology on our brains and we are still learning. I know I have made changes in my own consumption. I turned off the Facebook and Instagram notifications on my phone, and I have learned to recognize in myself when I have become over-saturated with information and screen time. Fortunately, I feel like I have struck a balance with the devices in my life, but it took a long time. That we expect our kids to figure this out on their own is a big ask in my opinion.
I can't help but wonder how the younger moms and dads raising Generation Alpha are doing dealing with all that the world is throwing at their families. Probably their best, as most of us have done before them, learning, failing and winning as we go.
Until next time,
Rebecca
