The rise of the machines

This is post #2 - post 1 is below.

I call this a parenting blog, but to be honest, we’ve abdicated much of our parenting responsibility to the people at Disney, Apple and Nintendo. Our kids want to do little else but play with their electronic devices. They beg to play iPad the moment they roll out of bed and Wii as soon as they get home from Sweet Kiddles each day. If you are ever in their presence, do not let them know that you own a smart phone. It will be commandeered and covered with Angry Birds variants before you even know what hit you.

We have a time limit of 1 hour of electronics per day which we usually can stick to. Nevertheless, Andrea, who got the iPad for her birthday two years ago, is the only one who almost never gets to use it because it always seems to be running the Monsters Inc. game, the Team Umi Zoomi game or Temple Run II. In part, despite the time limits, they’ve gotten good at getting off one electronic device and onto another. And the electronic devices are so numerous and can’t all be watched at once. They outnumber and are overtaking our family. It’s the rise of the machines.

And sometimes, let’s be honest, we just need the electronics. Parents today are left with few tools in our tool kit. We aren’t allowed to hit, bite, scratch, scream, whine, pout or yell. In other words, it’s not a fair fight. But we do have the ultimate weapon, the ICBM of parenting. We always can flip on a show, plop the kids on the couch and sip Chianti.

I try to justify it to myself that they are learning strategy, planning and money management – they play a lot of games like Monster Pet Shop where they have to purchase monsters, grow them and sell them for a profit. But the fact is the learnings aren’t really sticking. Rather than reinvest their profits, think strategically and grow, they always seem to squander them on wallpaper, toys for the monsters and the latest, most fashionable underwear for the pet shop owner. And their reckless spending isn’t limited to their own games – within seconds, Cody destroyed 2 months of my gem-banking efforts in my Village game on decorations and other brick-a-brack. Andrea doesn’t understand it at all, but I was furious (although I must admit my village does look really nice with all the daisies surrounding the towers and barracks!). It just seems like you can’t teach a 3-year-old good business sense.

So we’re constantly worried how all of the electronic stimulation will affect the kids. Who knows. The Good Lord knows I consumed an awful lot of Mario Brothers and ThunderCats in my day. And I turned out all… OH, GOODNESS – KIDS TURN OFF THAT NINTENDO!!!