What the Screen Time Debate Gets Wrong

“WAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!”

My two-year-old is throwing an absolute fit in the backseat.

I’m weaving through traffic in full dad stress mode.

Just give her the tablet, I thought.

I was fortunate to receive paternity leave for our second child, Holland. So, as my wife recuperated from the absolutely incredible feat of giving birth to a human being, I was given a simple task: drop off our two-year-old, Tuli, at preschool and pick her up.

My wife usually did this on her way to and from work, so it was time for me to step up.

The commute to the preschool was about 30-40 minutes, depending on traffic. It was mostly down Belair Road. I have mentioned Belair Road a few times in previous articles. Let’s just say that I sincerely dislike it.

Belair Road is a stroad trying to act like it is not. In many places, it has five lanes and they are wide. Yet, the speed limit is only 25 or 30 mph. There are businesses all along it, often auto collision repair centers — which is pretty apt.

There are check-the-box pedestrian crossings that no driver would ever stop at, for fear of being rear-ended. As a result, people scamper across everywhere. More times than I can count, I have seen drivers just throw on their hazard lights, park, and block an entire lane of traffic.

Belair Road also has speed cameras. I am actually a fan of speed cameras, but they placed them next to the most underserved neighborhoods, where the lanes are the widest and go downhill. My wife is a safe, careful driver and she would frequently get ticketed.

When you throw in aggressive drivers, big trucks, buses, and occasionally dirt bikes and ATVs, Belair Road is just… a lot.

Four times a day.

Day 1 was a mess. The stress crept up quickly. I was short with Tuli as she asked me questions from the backseat. Ten minutes in, she started to get upset and whined for a snack. She cried and wailed, and I was having a lot of trouble trying to drive and console her.

I was not in a good mindset for gentle or responsive parenting as I slammed the brakes because someone cut me off.

After that day, realizing I would be doing this trip 20 times a week, I decided I needed to focus to make sure we were safe. Keeping her occupied so I could concentrate seemed worth it.

I brought her tablet along for Day 2.

As usual, Dora the Explorer did her job well. The commutes went smoothly. No big crying or whining. I could concentrate while driving.

On Friday evening, after the kids went to bed, I chatted with my wife.

Sydney: “How has the commuting been going?”

Darren: “A lot better than the first day. I’ve been making sure to bring her tablet.”

Sydney: “What? I don’t usually let her have screen time in the car.”

Darren: “I dunno, it’s just stressful driving there and back twice a day, so I gave in.”

Sydney: “You don’t have to tell me how stressful it is. But that is a lot of screen time every day. And you know how she gets afterwards.”

She was right. Tuli becomes a monster when she looks at a screen for too long. That wasn’t us.

Shame started to settle in. What was I thinking?

Then I thought: Monday is going to be hell.

Monday morning:

Dad: “We are not going to do the tablet anymore, okay? Let’s play a game!”

Tuli: “What?! NO! I want Dora!”

Dad: “No, honey. We can’t watch Dora anymore because it is not good to watch a lot of the tablet in the car.”

Tuli: [hysterically crying and screaming for the entire trip]

Sydney and I are not screen time purists. We’ve used them to survive and we’ll use them again. But we did start asking a question we hadn’t asked before: not how much, but why.

Long trips in the car. Waiting rooms. When we are nearing lunch or dinner but still have more errands to run. Restaurants that are quieter and more formal than anticipated.

Some older generations might look down their noses at us. The irony is we’re usually doing it for the other people in the room.

We just try to be mindful. We think boredom can be good for kids. We’re not trying to eliminate screens entirely, but we want to use them strategically and not overdo it.

Were we just impatient and too quick to keep ourselves sane?

Probably a little.

But the main reason was simpler. There was a vacuum to fill. So many vacuums.

Kids used to have a world they could access on their own. They roamed independently. They showed up at each other’s houses. They had errands to run and places to be that didn’t require an adult to drive them.

That world didn’t disappear because parents got lazy or kids got soft.

Belair Road was not built for kids to cross on their own. Our preschool wasn’t close enough to walk to even if it was. The screens filled a gap that the environment created.

Sure, there are apps designed to be addictive and kids can absolutely get lost in them. We need to better regulate social media, AI, and similar technologies when it comes to our kids.

But we spend so much energy focused on the screen itself that we rarely ask what creates a need for it in the first place.

Our built environment has created so much friction between our kids and their destinations that the vacuum is enormous and feels like it is growing.

Screens didn’t cause the vacuum. They arrived after it was already there.

When we were in Taiwan, we got into a rhythm on the train.

The kids would ride their scooters down to the station, fold them up, and we would all hop on.

Then someone would pull a Bluey book out of the backpack and Tuli would read to Holland, or we would read to them together.

Thirty minutes later we were at our stop. Unfold the scooters and roll.

No crying. No tablets. No flustered parents. No shame.

What if kids could travel more independently? What if we didn’t have to haul them around quite so often?

We found that when there is less vacuum, there is less screen time.

The tablet was never really the problem. It just easier to see than the actual one.

Share

Leave a comment