Technology Is Getting In The Way Of My Parenting

I was watching Ed Sheerans new music video last week. Showing his own home movies from birth up to the man he is today. I could relate to many of the baby and toddler videos with my own children and it made me quite emotional. Well very emotional, I cried. Is that really how quickly children grow up? I don’t mean in the space of a three minute song, silly. But that time really does go so fast. It made me feel as if I’m wasting time with my children, that I need to capture and treasure every moment with them now because soon enough they will be in their teens, probably hating life and me, then they will move out and start their own families. I really don’t want that time to come. They can be such a pain sometimes, well, most of the time, but I don’t begrudge them for it. If anything it makes for funny stories later on. So, every moment, good or bad I want to make the most of. How on earth do I manage that?

The music video made me think about how we spend our current days, overall we’re quite a busy family, we’re not ones that can be stuck in the house all day. But there is always one massive flaw and I know I’m not the only guilty parent of this, our phones are always out, we’re always on them. For no reason exactly, no-one has called, no-one has sent an SOS text message, we’re just scrolling through social media looking at other peoples lives, who are also probably looking at our lives too. I hold my hands up, I’m a culprit of the pointless phone usage, while I should be on the floor with my children, playing or enjoying the scenery while we’re outdoors. I’m so bloody rude. The only time I should be whipping out my phone is to answer a call, reply to a message or take a picture to add to the thousands we have already. I shouldn’t be on it checking updates. Why do I need to know? I’m not saying phones should be banned full stop for anything social, but I really need to work on drastically cutting down the time I’m on my phone. It’s habit now more than anything and I really believe I’m one of the thousands (millions?) who are addicted to their phone. Which is strange because I deleted all of my online accounts such as Facebook after each time both children were born. I didn’t even miss it. Then I reactivated it all. Which I don’t regret doing, but I need to address this ridiculous addiction.

I never turn my nose up to technology and I’m not a parent that thinks it’s shameful to introduce your children to technology. Technology these days is bloody amazing. Smart-phones, tablets and my favourite, the dishwasher. Oh how I love the dishwasher. Technology is invented to make our lives easier and in a lot of ways more social too. Which I can hear some people debating the whole ‘why use a phone when you can meet them in person’ it’s not always that easy, plus on things like Facebook, it literally has a timeline of our lives and photos. I’m also not against popping a child in front of the TV or giving them a tablet (not the drug kind *chuckles*) while you get something done, children happy, you’re achieving something other than finding a clean pair of leggings to wear, everybody wins.

Life is short and these moments will one day all be gone. We will only have photographs and videos to look at to remember our children as they are now. I’m making a change thanks to Ed Sheeran. Thanks Ed. It will be a hard habit to break, but for the sake of being a part of my childrens lives, instead of on the sideline, it’s so worth it.