To the Mom on Her Phone: I Get It

I get it. Honestly, I do.

The only differences between me and the young mother eating lunch in her kid’s favorite fast food joint while staring into her phone is that my children are old enough to let me know where I went wrong.

I remember when the phone was my umbilical cord to sanity. It kept me company while I did sink loads of dishes by hand. It linked me to the outside world while I folded my 18th load of laundry that week (true story, I had 22 loads of laundry weekly). My phone was the tether to my intellectual self. It plugged me into the adult world.

I get it.

The difference between me and my “house phone” and today’s ever-present cell is that there were imposed limitations. Cell phones didn’t really come into play until my kids were in their teens. Cords, and even what were considered mobile devices then, limited my phone time to when I was physically in my home. Then, of course, there was the daunting expense of long distance charges. Trust me, that one meaty conversation with a girlfriend could eat an entire house payment.

There was one more limiting factor. The children could trash your house and/or (depending on the child) attempt death-defying feats while you talked.

The resounding bell that rang throughout the house was a signal to every kid, even a toddler, that mom was not looking. Twenty minutes on the phone could be tantamount to a toddler version of The Purge.

Knowing this kept an unofficial internal clock ticking that felt like a timebomb without an external read. Looking back, I realize that these seemingly archaic hurdles to keeping my mind alive amid snotty noses and dirty diapers were a blessing in disguise.

I had to learn the hard way to keep my phone from stepping into my relationship with my family.

When  The Huffington Post recently ran an open letter to “the mom on her phone” I realized not much has changed over the years.