—
The modern world is built on technology. From my ability to type this on a laptop, to your ability to read it, probably on your smartphone. But the chances are that you aren’t devoting all your attention to reading this. And I’m not saying you should. But what else are you doing? Watching the game? Googling stats or Ikea furniture? Reading the paper? Or are you watching your child play, or do homework? At this very moment, you are multitasking.
But it isn’t just the ability to multitask that technology has engendered, it is the normative character of that multitasking. The whole entrepreneurial, startup, tech business world promotes the idea that unless you are juggling several tasks at once, you aren’t being productive, you are not being all you can be. Whatever the facts of the matter—and you can read plenty of articles on our limited human abilities to multitask—we do it all the time. But there is at least one occasion where we must limit that urge.
I took my daughter to the local children’s museum the other day. As the children were busy playing, making fake pizza, enjoying the pretend grocery store, figuring out various puzzles and games, what were the parents doing? We (and honestly, I have to count myself amongst this cohort), we were all heads down, staring at our devices. Not 100% absorbed, mind you. The regular glances away from the screens to check on our kids told that story at least, but what we definitely weren’t was 100% engaged with our children. Now, in this context, where the kids were playing together, we’d have just been in the way, but by not focusing on them, we were definitely missing out. After all, that Facebook post, Buzzfeed article, email, text, newspaper, or meme, would still be there later. But the possibility to experience our children’s joy at that moment would be gone forever. It struck a worrying note.
More and more, I found that I was catching myself, phone in hand, idly checking an email, or making a note, or reading The Guardian, or checking Twitter, when in fact I should have been devoting all my attention to my daughter. It’s not as though I was absent, but nor was I totally present. This was detrimental to me and to her. To me because I lost the entirety of the moment with her, to my daughter because she was not sharing that moment with just me, but with me and the device. Suddenly, I was horrified. Angry at myself and my fractured, multitasking attention span. I resolved to change. I urge you to as well.
The first time I heard the phrase ‘Lean In’, as the call to action title of Sheryl Sandberg’s work on empowering women in the workplace, I recoiled from the neologism. So banal, so faux sincere. But the longer it’s been around, as part of the modern lexicon, so I have come more and more to respect its ambition and general application. (The irony here, of course, is that Sandberg and her tragically late husband, seemed, in their always-on careers, to find it very hard to ‘lean in’ where their children were concerned.) Nevertheless, as an ambition, as a call to action, it seems eminently applicable here.
Putting down your device and Leaning In, is not just a case of helping with homework, or throwing a football in the garden, things that should anyway take all your attention. It’s things like watching television together, being engaged while they play with Lego, sitting through My Neighbor Totoro together for the umpteenth time, and doing those things with all your focus and attention. Children need to be engaged with. They deserve to be engaged with. You brought them into the world unasked, the least they deserve is your attention once they are here. They have millions of questions, they need you to show them how to hold a pen, to join the dots, to build a house with blocks or a fort with cushions. And they love sharing those moments. When they throw a tea party and they invite you, they don’t want you to show up with your phone!
If I have a rallying cry, it is this: lean into your children. Put down your phone. If you must, if it makes it easier, formalize it. Set aside two hours in the evening when that device is off, when 100% of your attention is devoted to being with your children. And tell people, work, friends, family that you are not going to text, chat, email, Facebook, whatever during those hours. Let your children have that time with you. Let yourself have that time with them. In a sense, it’s a permission thing. I give myself permission to not check my email. I give myself permission to be here, in the moment, to Lean In, to play.
—
Get the best stories from The Good Men Project delivered straight to your inbox, here.
Sign up for our Writing Prompts email to receive writing inspiration in your inbox twice per week.
—
Photo credit: Getty Images