Last night, my husband and I took a walk down memory lane. That walk, which was actually a late-night talk and the only time he and I had the opportunity to have a full conversation with one another all day, consisted of he and I remembering “before times”. “Before” meaning before we were locked down in our house for the better part of 10 months with no end, or human contact, in sight.
“Remember when we used to wonder how we’d get through a weekend if the kids didn’t have plans?” he said with a smile.
I responded by asking if he remembered when we used to do something other than working and parenting, the only two things our days consist of during this never-ending pandemic.
“Remember when our kids did other things besides watch things?” he asked having just read the New York Times’ treatise on kids’ pandemic screen time with the word “alarming” in the headline.
He sailed quickly off to dreamland, but my eyes were wide open
The two most guilt-inducing words in parenting history, “screen time”, jumping through my brain.
I spent the better part of the night tossing and turning, my mind riddled with remembering life in “before” times, when my kids, ages 13 and 10, played for hours with friends, came home exhausted and hungry from after-school sports, and saw screen time as a treat or respite from schoolwork — not as a babysitter, best friend and the only time-passing game in town.
I calculated how many hours my 10-year-old daughter had spent on some version of a screen that day, a day she didn’t have Zoom school. The answer was so startling, I stopped counting and don’t dare repeat that number here. This was a child whom we had to force to watch a show simply so my husband and I could get a break during a weekend day. Now this child has some days where screen time feels like her full-time job.
I wondered if I’d failed her
I live in Los Angeles where we’ve been in a lockdown since mid-March 2020. My children have not been to school in-person since then and they’ve each seen two or three friends who are only seeing those same two or three friends for the duration of the quarantine. My husband and I both work and are already stretched, emotionally drained and fresh out of family game night, theme night, what-are-we-going-to-do-tonight ideas.
In “before” times, we were parents whose kids only did screens on the weekend. Now life, other than school, is a screen time free-for-all. That’s probably not going to change anytime soon.
The downside of all those screens for kids is clear. Kids are way too young to have the savvy to navigate entire friendships, group dynamics and childhood developments through group text chats, Fortnite group games or FaceTime calls. Their attention spans are shrinking and they’re all starved for contact with their friends in person. Sometimes, that Fortnite group becomes the only lifeline these kids have to keep them sane — even if that lifeline ends with them being in a bad mood and having a shorter attention span.
My kids are getting exercise each day, but they’re still moving less
They take screen breaks, but they don’t last long. We spend quality family time together, but we’ve all run out of conversation topics, activities, and crafts. That’s because there’s nowhere to go that’s either open or not filled with people who won’t wear a mask meaning one takes their life into their own hands to get a little fresh air.
Los Angeles is the current nationwide epicenter of the pandemic. Those groups of three safe friends all now include one parent who got COVID, meaning that safe group wasn’t so safe. Most people here have paused their pods and kids are left on their own. Netflix and video games have become kids’ connection to the outside world because we parents have been abandoned and left to fend for ourselves.
If it takes a village, our village is nowhere to be found
Out of necessity, screen time has become most pandemic parents’ village.
The super judgey New York Times article suggests parents turn off wifi when kids are not in remote school. It cites the permanent damage that all these screens are doing to our children. I have no doubt that is factually correct. And I have no doubt we’ll have a hard time weaning our children off of six hours straight of iCarly episodes or the never-ending stream of TikTok videos that scream at us from our children’s phones, but we parents are in survival mode.
We don’t have the luxury of thinking about best practices and parenting strategies. We are all hanging by a thread, left with no financial or emotional support. And so, in an effort just to pass the time and so that we can work, we parents have paused screen time rules simply to keep ourselves and our children sane.
At the end of the day, there’s still a lot of hours left in the day that need to be filled. Some of those hours are filled with the kids being bored. We’re okay with that and they’ve learned to push past the boredom. But a lot of those hours are filled with Cupcake Squad YouTube videos, The Office being watched from beginning to end, and video games being played for hours at a time.
And you know what? I’m not going to spend one more sleepless night regretting those hours they’re spending in front of a screen. Like most parents left to fend for ourselves during this pandemic, I’m doing the best I can. I am the emotional retaining wall for my entire family with no one there to support me. So, if my kids are watching too many screens, I’ll take it and deal with the consequences later.
These are desperate times and there’s no room for judgement
The downside of all these screens for kids is clear when you’ve spent time with your own child after they’ve been on way too long. But on the plus side, these kids are so over watching a screen that when we finally do get to return to “before” times, they’ll look at their iPad and computer screens and wince. They’ll be so happy to run, play, and breathe fresh air. And so will we parents.
But until then, parents are just doing the best they can. Staying employed while keeping our children sane, while also attempting to stay sane ourselves, is a full-time job. And most of us are doing it all with zero help. So if that help is coming in the form of a small screen that helps my kid laugh and stay connected, I can live with it. We can try for best practices another time.
And no one — and I mean NO ONE — should be judging a parent for just trying their best in unprecendented times. Besides, no parent has time for all this judgemental nonesense anyways. Haven’t you heard? We’re drowning here.
