'Texting While Parenting' is Nothing to Feel Guilty About
Can you believe some mothers have the utter carelessness and audacity to send text messages while parenting?! I don't know about you ladies, but when my kids were tiny little butterballs who weren't so great at balancing yet, I never let them out of my sight for a second! In fact, I used to sort of squat down to their level and follow them all over the playground, waddling like some kind of deranged crab, so I'd always be right there to catch them if they took a tumble. Honestly gals, I just don't know why we even bother cutting the umbilical cord!
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Okay, so obviously I'm kidding, but these hyper-helicopter parent types do exist -- and I blame THEM for the recent "study" based on anecdotal evidence which links the increasing use of smartphones (i.e., distracted, texting parents) with the also increasing rate of playground injuries (particularly to children under 5). But you know something? I don't buy it, and here's why:
Think back, for a moment, to your own childhood. Those misty, watercolored memories of falling off your tricycle into a cement planter and getting a big goose egg on your forehead because you weren't wearing a helmet (nobody wore helmets back then, NO-body). Or that time you learned that flying is not, in fact, as easy as jumping off a big high rock and flapping your arms like wings. Hell, when one of my aunts was a kid, she crashed her bike into some bushes and walked in the house with a giant stick protruding from one ear -- that's the stuff of family legend!
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Anyway, my point is, parents today might find themselves slightly "distracted" from their kid's 80th trip down the curly slide, but we're still a lot more diligent than the "Go outside and play but make sure you come home for supper!" parents of yesterday. And somehow, either way, the human race manages to survive ...
Do you think 'texting while parenting' is something to feel guilty about?
Image via Ed Yourdon/Flickr
Written by Jacqueline Burt on CafeMom's blog, The Stir.
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