While I disliked the tone of the piece, I mostly agree with the sentiment. But this (very bitter) part just made me laugh:
> But please, yes, tell me again about young people and screen time and content and moral decay, and how the mobiles they’re engaging with are somehow a greater risk to their character than their own parents and their own grandparents and the family traditions they hold so dear, such as laughing in your face when you suggest shared family mealtimes around a table, a suggestion which might lead to talking to each other, listening to each other, and being present in that shared moment with each other. Tell me all about it.
This sounds like something my parents would have said. We ate our meal at a table in a room without screens. Nonetheless, my spouse describes the meals I had with my family when we all lived together as “psychological warfare,” and I can’t disagree. When my parents tried to force us all to come together for anything, we laughed in their faces because we hated being together. If that’s the reaction you get from your children, look inward. And if your spouse won’t help you figure it out, then you have at least a partial answer. To this day I avoid interacting with my family as much as possible because my parents couldn’t keep the household under control. They were arbitrary with their punishments, and untrustworthy as far as confiding them with thoughts and feelings. At best nothing would be done about it. At worst, it would come back to bite you later. I didn’t want to talk to people in my family because the result was guaranteed to be extremely painful. I suspect it was the same with the author’s children and husband. It sounds like she did the right thing by getting out.
You really can't fake genuine emotional engagement and secure attachment, and when those aren't there there are absolutely no way to "force" it to happen. If your child doesn't feel safe telling you about their hopes and dreams and their social lives, forcing them to sit quietly at a dinner table is not going to make those things happen, it will teach them instead to both dread time with you and also to learn how to filter everything they care about.
That's a great explanation of an experience I think many of us share. Family members insisting we spend time together out of some deference to tradition, in spite of the fact that there is a proven and undeniable hostility between these people that are being forced to spend time together. I don't particularly like doing anything just for the sake of tradition, let alone activities that cause obvious psychological stress and harm!
> But please, yes, tell me again about young people and screen time and content and moral decay, and how the mobiles they’re engaging with are somehow a greater risk to their character than their own parents and their own grandparents and the family traditions they hold so dear, such as laughing in your face when you suggest shared family mealtimes around a table, a suggestion which might lead to talking to each other, listening to each other, and being present in that shared moment with each other. Tell me all about it.
This sounds like something my parents would have said. We ate our meal at a table in a room without screens. Nonetheless, my spouse describes the meals I had with my family when we all lived together as “psychological warfare,” and I can’t disagree. When my parents tried to force us all to come together for anything, we laughed in their faces because we hated being together. If that’s the reaction you get from your children, look inward. And if your spouse won’t help you figure it out, then you have at least a partial answer. To this day I avoid interacting with my family as much as possible because my parents couldn’t keep the household under control. They were arbitrary with their punishments, and untrustworthy as far as confiding them with thoughts and feelings. At best nothing would be done about it. At worst, it would come back to bite you later. I didn’t want to talk to people in my family because the result was guaranteed to be extremely painful. I suspect it was the same with the author’s children and husband. It sounds like she did the right thing by getting out.