The Screen in My Own Eye

A woman I know used to run a successful passion project on Instagram. Her online influence grew steadily until one fateful day when it careened to a stop. In the middle of her daily post, her oldest son touched her arm gently and said:

“Mommy, will you put down your phone?”

Does your life with your screen reflect the one you want your kids to have ten, twenty, thirty years from now? And if it does not, it is time to get the log out of our eye, so we can stand up straight before them.

The Screen in Our Eyes

Parenting with technology, specifically with screens and devices, is not new anymore. It is a road we have been navigating as a culture for some time now, especially since the advent of the iPhone in 2007. Every family eventually finds itself at a similar crossroads, with similar questions: When do we give them a smart phone? What about an iPad? How much screen time is too much? And at the heart of all this: How do we shepherd our kids well amidst a technological world?

I am learning that the first issue to be addressed among parenting with technology is an ancient one, albeit one that we do not like to see. My friend from the story above would be the first to admit it: as parents, we have a log in our eyes. We want to teach our kids healthy boundaries with screens, but our own relationships with our smartphones are telling. Jesus’s words, spoken 2000 years earlier, are still for us: “How can you say to your brother” (or your child), “‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3-5).

If we want to raise children who understand responsible screen use, then we need to model it. So, we need to learn to see the screen in our eye and put down our phones.

Living Differently

For me, this journey meant diving into a deeper pool than simply limiting my own screen time. It meant asking myself the harder question of why I was so tempted to reach for my phone in the moments when parenting is difficult or waiting in line at the grocery store feels boring. And if I am honest, the answers did not line up with the parent I wanted to be. I desired to raise kids that were living differently than the culture around them, and I realized that I had to go first.

So, I made some changes.

All social media accounts were deleted, because if they were not healthy for my kids (and around the world, researchers are telling us they are not: hence the first ban on them for minors), then why would they be healthy for me? Then I removed my internet browser and my email from my phone, because I noticed how tempting it was to use it as an escape from the parts of my life that did not feel exciting. Now, I generally check my email once during nap time (on a laptop, which I pull out) and sometimes once more before bed at night. And that suffices.

My phone is kept out of reach, because I learned that simply keeping your phone in a line of sight changes the atmosphere in the whole room. My phone lives in a drawer in my kitchen, or in the drawer of my bedside table. Having my phone in these places reminds me that when I “check” my phone, I am, if even for a minute, “checking out” from the people (usually my kids) in front of me. In an emergency, I can still hear my phone ring.

The point of all this is not to say that we have to act like we live in the era of the Little House on the Prairie, as if those times were the peachiest. They certainly were not, and I am thankful that I do not live in a world where I have to churn my own butter. I know that my family’s way of doing this will not work for everyone, but here is a question for all parents, the one that struck me: Does your life with your screen reflect the one you want your kids to have ten, twenty, thirty years from now? And if it does not, it is time to get the log out of our eye, so we can stand up straight before them.

Recommended Reading:

1. The Opt Out Family by Erin Loechmere
   A deep-dive into counter-technological parenting, with practical, research-based tips for reducing screen use in your home. The book that shook up my parenting for good.
2. 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You by Tony Reinke
   A sharp awakening to what is happening to our world (and ourselves) via screens. Author Tony Reinke helps us ask if this is what we want for ourselves and our families.
3. Bad Therapy by Abigail Shrier
   The best book I read last year, explaining how deeply embedded the modern parenting culture is in practices that are leading us astray (including, yes, the use of smartphones.) I cried with conviction when I finished it.