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You're obviously right about badly formed science, and of course stuff should be verified before it's shouted about. I also have personal experience (well, pers

by dmje 7y ago

You're obviously right about badly formed science, and of course stuff should be verified before it's shouted about. I also have personal experience (well, personal via my wife!) with the whole breastfeeding thing - you're right, there are some BreastNazis out there and they do need calling out, for sure. Having said that - people have managed to parent their kids for ever without screens. Why are we suddenly so reliant on this shit like it's some kind of third arm? I just don't get it. It's kind of blindingly obvious to me - even without the evidence of science - that putting a screen in front of your kid falls short in so many ways compared to how it used to be - maybe encouraging them to play, properly, with blocks / Lego, soft toys or books. This is so obviously more likely to enable them to build their spacial awareness or encourage reading than staring mindlessly at YouTube Kids, surely? Not least of all it will give them some understanding of how to interact with the real world around them. Plus - and this is a big one for me - real, quality time with parents actually interacting, properly, with their kids - talking to them, reading to them, playing with them - is lost! You can pretend you're "browsing YouTube together" or whatever but we all know that's b/s - there's no meaningful interaction between you and your kids in doing that. You want space in the evening to be an adult? Sure - get your kids to bed at 7pm every night so they have a routine and you get to have grown-up time! You don't need a screen to do that shit - you just need to parent with conviction and stick to your guns. It's hard, really hard, but it's never been anything else. Expecting it to be somehow made easy with an iPad is a fools game. Final thing - we gotta be really careful with the "I don't believe in experts any more" thing. That way ...is Trump.... ;-)

untog 7y ago
> Why are we suddenly so reliant on this shit like it's some kind of third arm? I just don't get it. Because our lives are different. It was overwhelmingly common for a parent to stay at home a generation or two ago (yes, it was almost always the mother but there’s no reason that would have to be the case today). But plenty of families, my own included, need both parents to be working in order to get by. Simply put, we’re paid less than people used to be. Housing is more expensive than it used to be. Transport is more expensive than it used to be. So we have to work harder and our personal lives suffer.
- dmje 7y ago
  But that does nothing to explain or justify further use of mobile phones with kids. I mean, you're presumably not suggesting that people go to work and leave their kids at home with an iPad, right? Also just a defensive style sidenote :-) - My kids are now 12 and 15 so this was, what 10-12 years ago, not the 1950's. We both had to work. We had no money. We got by, no phones, just shed loads of books and a massive heap of love and care.

by dmje 7y ago

untog 7y ago

> Why are we suddenly so reliant on this shit like it's some kind of third arm? I just don't get it. Because our lives are different. It was overwhelmingly common for a parent to stay at home a generation or two ago (yes, it was almost always the mother but there’s no reason that would have to be the case today). But plenty of families, my own included, need both parents to be working in order to get by. Simply put, we’re paid less than people used to be. Housing is more expensive than it used to be. Transport is more expensive than it used to be. So we have to work harder and our personal lives suffer.

dmje 7y ago
But that does nothing to explain or justify further use of mobile phones with kids. I mean, you're presumably not suggesting that people go to work and leave their kids at home with an iPad, right? Also just a defensive style sidenote :-) - My kids are now 12 and 15 so this was, what 10-12 years ago, not the 1950's. We both had to work. We had no money. We got by, no phones, just shed loads of books and a massive heap of love and care.