One afternoon when I was young, my brother, sister, and I lugged this gigantic box out onto our back patio. My parents had just bought a new dryer and here was this huge box full of possibilities. Something had to be done with this great box; to leave it by the trash pick-up seemed like a waste of a good time. So, the three of us put our heads together and decided on a masterpiece. We would create the Fix-It-Up Chappy! What is that, you ask? Well, we stuck the box on our wagon, cut doors, windows, and a hole for the handle to go through; then we used aluminum foil to make a rearview mirror and side mirrors; lastly, we decorated it to our liking. Voilรก! We created a car out of a box and wagon. It was so much fun to push each other around in that contraption. My siblings and I still to this day reminisce about the box that gave us hours of fun.
Later in life, when I was living back home during summer break from college, my siblings and I would make these spontaneous videos late at night. I’d get home from work and we’d dream up these silly, goofy skits and videotape ourselves. They are the stuff of legends. Our family has had more laughs over our antics than probably anything else in our lives. They’re so good that our familyย often quotes lines from those skits.
On summer nights, I could always get my dad to come outside with me and play catch.
My mom and I used to take walks together all over our town. We’d talk and talk about all kinds of things. It was such a good way to bond with her.
When I was young, my cousins and I would visit my grandma and grandpa’s house and have tea parties, play dress up, walk around the square in town while licking our ice cream treat. We’d spend all day at the pool, swimming like fish and wearing ourselves out. It was always so glorious to walk into my grandparent’s air-conditioned house all sun-tired and happy. It was such a good feeling.
At my other grandparent’s house, my grandpa would take me and my cousins driving and can-hunting. We’d hang off his work truck like a bunch of garbage men and try to spot aluminum cans on the side of the road. This was all done out on gravel country roads. When we saw one, we’d holler out and whoever was driving would stop and you’d run and get the can, throw it in the back of the truck, jump back on the truck, and drive on. We did this to turn the cans in for money so that we’d have treat money. My grandpa was teaching us the value of hard work, but it was so much fun we didn’t see it that way.
So many memories: Lightening bugs in Mason jars on summer nights. Roaming the town with my cousins playing games. Finding the spooky house in town and daring each other to go up to it. Parks with my dad. Learning to cook with my mom. Dinner with my family every evening. My head is full of wonderful memories.
I shudder to think what my life would have been like if the internet and smartphones had been a thing in my youth. None of these memories would have happened. Well, they might have happened, but I’d have half my brain thinking about my stupid phone and not the moment. I’ve looked around lately and I worry about the state of our society. I worry that we are losing what makes the human experience so full and rich. I see broken families and families that barely know one another. I see us all with our eyes glued to screens instead of seeing our world around us. I see violence mount and we are all looking for laws and politicians to save us, but we know deep down that this isn’t the answer. The answers are God and family. We haven’t yet offered up God and restoring the family as solutions to all our society’s ills, but, they are the answers.
Recently, my family was out to dinner. We were sitting around laughing and enjoying each other’s company when this other family of four walked in. There was a mom, dad, and two teenage sons. Both of the boys had earbuds in and were staring at their phones as they made their way to their table. They didn’t put the phones aside once they sat down. The entire time they mindlessly stared at their phones and didn’t engage another person. The parents sat there and just looked on with sad faces. They barely even talked to each other. No one at the table looked happy or like they were enjoying themselves. It made my heart hurt for them. This is not how family life should go.
I get it. We’ve all gotten sucked into electronics. The internet and smartphones took us by storm and I think now we are all realizing deep down that something isn’t right. Electronics are used like babysitters. Married couples are falling asleep with phones in their hands instead of their spouse in their arms. Teens are depressed and disengaged from their parents and other siblings. Neighbors barely talk. You can’t go anywhere where people aren’t gazing into some electronic device.
But aren’t we made for more? Shouldn’t our lives be full of memories like the ones I recounted above? What will kids that grew up after 2000 have as memories? Lots of screen time? Will they tell their children all about the hours they spent playing games and shuffling through social media? Those aren’t memories. Shouldn’t we be engaging with each other face-to-face and not through virtual reality? Shouldn’t we allow ourselves to be bored so that we can get creative? Shouldn’t we be learning new hobbies and getting outside instead of binging on Netflix?
I can guarantee you that at the end of our lives we aren’t going to say, “I wish I could have watched a little more Netflix. I wish I could have played some mindless game on my phone a few more times.” I have a feeling we are going to regret all this wasted time. We are going to wish for more time with friends laughing over wine or learning some new hobby together. We are going to wish for more time with our spouse to make love, pillow talk, read together, get outside together, and explore together. We are going to wish that our kids had memories of scraped knees, mud pie parties, and turning a box into something fun. We are going to wish for ourselves that we’d read more, baked more, created more, exercised more, and prayed more.
We need to get our families back. For those of us that remember life without smartphones, social media, and the internet, we need to start bringing those times back for our families. How do we do that? Here are ten suggestions from me:
- No kid under the age of 15 needs a smartphone. Have courage and don’t give in. When they are adults, they will thank you. My oldest didn’t get a phone until she was 15 and she survived.
- Little ones should only get 15 minutes of screen time per day. This doesn’t include a movie now and then. Set a timer. When it goes off, they are done.
- Eat at least one meal together a day. Listen, my mom was a working mom and my siblings and I always had this, that, and the other going on, but my parents still made it a priority for us to eat together as a family. I am infinitely thankful for this. Remember, it’s important to talk to each other, so this means no screens at the dinner table.
- Go to church on Sunday. Pray together. Talk about God more than just on Sundays and involve Him in your lives.
- Don’t go to bed with your phone. If you need to put all the phones in one place in the house so that no one is tempted to scroll before bed then do it! Be disciplined.
- Don’t wake up and look at your phone. Take a shower. Pray. Be with your kids and spouse before everyone goes their separate ways for the day.
- Read actual books. People who read books are interesting. Be interesting.
- Let your kids go outside. Kids need to be in the sun. They need to play and be creative. Let them get bored. It’s OKAY! I promise.
- Learn to not pick up an electronic yourself every time there is downtime; instead, stretch, read a quick magazine article, pray, do a chore, or play with your kids. Anymore we don’t know how to have downtime. We’ve become uninteresting people who just stare at our screens all the time. Nobody talks to each other and it’s lonely.
- Get outside. Get your family and get outside. Hike, take a walk, garden, go biking, but do something. Just sit outside and enjoy an evening together. We’ve lost the art of relaxing and appreciating the time God gives us. We waste so much of the precious time God has given us and it doesn’t have to be this way.
There are more things I could suggest, but these are a start. If you find yourself getting defensive or anxious about cutting out electronics, well, I’m gonna tell you that I understand that feeling; however, it means we are too dependent on electronics and they are controlling us instead of us controlling them. That’s not good. I’ve told my children (the older ones at least) to hold me accountable. They are to call me out if I’m lost in my phone or checking out.
We can stand around and bemoan our society’s situation or we can buck up and get to work. Our children deserve better than this. They may hate you at first, but once their brains are cleared of the screen-induced fog, they will start to see the real world. They will make good memories with you and with others. They will thank you, maybe not out loud, but inside their soul, they will be grateful. We make things better one step at a time by focusing on our families and making them strong, healthy, and full of purpose. We do this by asking God to show us the way and to help us when we fall.
