Screens and kids

There is a post and many comments on it, on the NYTimes Motherlode blog recently, about keeping toddlers away from TV. So many different opinions, so many different experiences, and yet there is always this undertone, similar to that about natural childbirth, and breastfeeding, that if you aren't doing it, it is because you don't care enough. Your priorities just aren't in the right place.

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/the-real-problem-with-toddlers-and-tv/

For the issue of TV watching, there is this sense from some commenters that those parents who do let their 2 year olds watch TV or videos, they should stop using it as a cheap babysitter. And that since X study or Y report talks about how TV is harmful for kids, you shouldn't let them see it yet.

I was planning on writing this post this morning, before heading off to work, but A got croup last night. And as part of our shower-in-the-bathroom-off-her-room-as-humidifier campaign, A's bedroom floor got flooded. Even after her coughing spasm settled around midnight, and she was asleep again, I was constantly listening for the sound of her breathing. I was sleeping with the white noise off, with my ears as close to her head as possible. She'd keep rolling onto her back to sleep and every 10th breath would just not come. She'd stop breathing. I'd try not to freak out. She'd wiggle around and wheeze again. I'd wonder when we should go to the hospital. She'd stop breathing again, turn, and continue her wheezy sleep.

Luckily, we both got some sleep last night, so even though she wasn't off to school today, I wasn't a total wreck. It was kind of nice to hang out at home waiting for the doctor's appointment. She was a bit slower than usual but in a good mood. But I still needed to get ready. I gave her my iPhone to play some Fish School. And thought about the post I'd wanted to write.

Among our friends with 2 year olds here, there is a range of TV or video use with their kids. And I think that is perfectly ok. Turns out M and I have the ability to not use TV very much because we have a solid amount of daycare for A, and a babysitter, and some household help. This is a luxury. And one on a very fine line. Because one night of illness, and our precariously just-barely balanced lives get knocked on their asses. And the iPhone games and Sesame Street videos on You Tube whoosh right in. Because our kid is a firecracker. And because, unlike with social science and psychology research, this watching-or-not of a screen doesn't happen in a controlled setting. It isn't about playing with her or having her watch TV, with difference between the two. Life doesn't happen in a single-variable-changing situation. Sometimes it means the morning goes smoothly, for two, still tired parents. And we enjoy each other's company. And I imagine that there are a lot of people who have a lot less resources, and a lot more stress who are using TV or videos to maintain some sense of sanity.

I currently live in a country where everyone has health insurance regardless of a job. Where salaries can be good, and where we moved because our standard of living would rise, monetarily. There are many social supports for people here. My husband shares a lot of household, pet and child duties with me. And I get to choose TV or not when I have the cushion of sleep, and other safeguards (although that may not be today, given my inability to find the right words today). As soon as they are gone, iPhone is my wingman. As part of a loving, caring, calm household. As part of getting through a tough sick-day.

On a trip with three friends last weekend, we spent a lot of time retelling our children's birth stories, breastfeeding stories, parenting stories. We had each been given completely different experiences, and even different views of the same experiences. Each woman's body is so unique in terms of how it will or won't conceive, birth a child, lactate. And yet all the judgment gets brought down hard for only one of two options - right, and wrong. We don't respect people's bodies in context of their lives, or their parenting decisions in context of their messy, complex, multi-variable lives.

Research studies and real life family life are very different. It is a good thing to keep in mind.