I wish we had the same willpower to enforce some kind of balance, but unfortunately, it's a little late for that. One kid grown and out of the house and Snags Light is 17. He's not so much into gaming anymore but his face is absolutely buried in his phone...with headphones on. It's our fault because we've just never put our foot down about it. Gotta' say I respect you and the Mrs. for taking that stand.
I'll spare everyone the old, "Back in the day" speech. Just suffice it to say that electronics weren't a part of our upbringing. I have a ton of great memories from all the stuff we did as kids, the majority of it in the great outdoors.
Back in the day...
When I was a kid I built ramps and jumped my bike over cars, ditches and other dangers. I once piled wood into a shallow ditch, set it on fire and jumped my bike through that. I built "forts" out of rocks I dug up. I climbed trees and read books and napped in the branches. I built model cars so I could blow them up with firecrackers and gasoline. I dammed creeks and caught fish, turtles and the occasional snake. I'd leave the house early and come back in for lunch and when it got dark. Sometimes not even then. A couple of times I built litttle shelters in the woods/trees and slept there when my folks said it was okay.
That's apparently over. My kids never get dirty. Never climb trees. Never build anything or do much of anything physical.
At the Christmas dinner table I looked around. The ages around the table were: 27, 26, 23, 18, 17, 17, 18, 50+ and 50. Only two of those weren't on the phone doing who knows what. Instafacing, bookgramming, whatever. Same thing at a bigger dinner a few days before. Fifteen people in the room and twelve of them looking at their phones.
You know what I want to invent? A cloaking device. Something I can turn on that will disable all cell phones, iPads and any of that shit to force people to put them down for an hour or so.
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