I feel like this article is good, on the verge of great, then makes cultural comments that invalidate the point trying to be made for no real reason. Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood?
The rest is spot on. I became a parent before I was ready, and man, they are little sponges. They learn everything you do, everything you say, embarrassingly so. My 5 year old would lay on the couch to 'rest her back' like me. She'd say weird country sayings I learned from my own Dad, like 'kneehigh to a cricket.' I had a habit of saying 'dicking with' to mean 'messing with' until she got scolded by a teacher at the ripe old age of 7.
The hardest part for parents today seems to be putting their phone down. It's what the kid and Mom have fought about forever, then applied to me. It's so easy to lose yourself in your social media, work, reading, etc. and kids are super receptive to it. But not as that effort, but as having a parent who stares at their phone unattentively. Our kid made her own 'phone' out of cardboard as a child, pretending to read and chat on it. That struck me deeply.
I never had social media, but as a voracious reader still find myself falling into the trap. Kids notice. Kids today have it harder because of that. My parents didn't have the Internet, they created the world we lived in and tailored it to us. I think that's incredibly rare today.
Now she's 13, knows it all, and doesn't want to be picked up anymore. And I tell you, I wish I never had a smartphone at all.
The rest is spot on. I became a parent before I was ready, and man, they are little sponges. They learn everything you do, everything you say, embarrassingly so. My 5 year old would lay on the couch to 'rest her back' like me. She'd say weird country sayings I learned from my own Dad, like 'kneehigh to a cricket.' I had a habit of saying 'dicking with' to mean 'messing with' until she got scolded by a teacher at the ripe old age of 7.
The hardest part for parents today seems to be putting their phone down. It's what the kid and Mom have fought about forever, then applied to me. It's so easy to lose yourself in your social media, work, reading, etc. and kids are super receptive to it. But not as that effort, but as having a parent who stares at their phone unattentively. Our kid made her own 'phone' out of cardboard as a child, pretending to read and chat on it. That struck me deeply.
I never had social media, but as a voracious reader still find myself falling into the trap. Kids notice. Kids today have it harder because of that. My parents didn't have the Internet, they created the world we lived in and tailored it to us. I think that's incredibly rare today.
Now she's 13, knows it all, and doesn't want to be picked up anymore. And I tell you, I wish I never had a smartphone at all.