mother's day: not just for mothers

i’ve long thought that hallmark has hijacked our holidays. i don’t necessarily resent them. nor do i wish them ill. i believe, quite firmly actually, that people should be celebrated and that these “people celebrations” happen too infrequently. it’s just that i don’t like the pressure large corporations exert or the expectations they set. i don’t like that they set the expectation that moms should get flowers and chocolate on mothers day and dads should go fishing on father’s day. i don’t like that valentines day is only for lovers or that those who don’t fit into certain roles don’t get celebration days like those who do.  “hallmark holidays” are rarely simple and frequently painful.

there are few people for whom mother’s day (or father’s day or valentine’s day or any of the other days promoted primarily by greeting card companies and gift retailers) isn’t conflicted. motherhood is a tricky thing. those of us who are moms realize we are flawed and every one of us was given life by a deeply human individual. the june cleavers in this world are few and far between and nowhere near as perfect as the shiny, happy television persona appeared to be.

when mother’s day approaches some people pour over card selections, trying to find a sentiment that is both honest and kind. others feel resigned to either tell their mothers lies or ignore them altogether, often reintroducing guilt and shame that have long and complex root systems in the past. many people cry, weep even, for missing mothers they have lost or for children they haven’t had. others feel insignificant, unloved, unappreciated. mothers with kids at home feel conflictedly unworthy of the gifts they are given or secretly wish for a bit more attention on this very public day. few seem settled with the day as it is. somehow hallmark never captures this side of these holidays. there aren’t ads depicting the dread that many feel or cards for women who wish for children or for those who feel left out even though they are childless by choice.

so, this weekend, what if we each took charge of our own mother’s day? rather than letting hallmark, or anyone else, set our expectations we could take time to understand our own. if we are mothers we might, then, communicate with our families about what is meaningful to us in the way of celebration without passively holding them accountable for meeting our needs. if we have mothers we might work to discover ways of honoring them without allowing ourselves to resent them (remember, we are in charge of our emotions, not them). if we are in relationship with people who may hurt on this day (such as those who may feel marginalized in our culture by, for whatever reason, not being moms or those who have lost their mothers) we might find ways of reaching out to them. not pitying or obvious ways but ways none the less.

dictionaries define motherly as “resembling, or characteristic, of a mother, especially in being caring, protective, and kind.” whether your mother by blood lived out any of these qualities consistently or not i am guessing that you can recall a time or two when she did. i’m also guessing that you can identify others who have shown care, protection, or kindness to you. how can you recognize these gifts without giving more than you can emotionally, practically, or financially afford? if you overspend in any of these areas you are likely to resent the recipient. generosity is important but only insomuch as it is tempered with reality.

the same is true for the receiver. if you are a mother, own your expectations. don’t project them out onto others. ask directly and honestly and be mature in handling the response. if you are disappointed, think, feel, and talk this through with a trusted other before unloading it onto your partner or children. little about parenting is easy. use difficulties here to learn and grow into the kind of parent who is healthy and mature.

and so i, with great intention, honor the mothers in my life. while there are plenty of cards i could buy my mom there are none for graduate school advisors turned life long mentors or important people of other stripes. so...i’ll “write” my own. i am eternally grateful to my mother for teaching me hospitality, generosity of love, and creativity. i am boundlessly thankful to nancy who, for all intents and purposes, gave birth to my intellect and therapeutic skills and nurtured the complexity that is me in ways words will never quite express. and to jo, who is teaching me a new and deeper way of love, bless you for your profoundly meaningful presence. to the many other women in my life who are caring, kind, and at times even protective of me, thank you for your “motherliness” in my life. may i share all of your influences in every one of my own mother-minded ways of being in the world.

habituated ritual

The comics, with the sound of football in the background, was Sunday. Monday meant peanut butter toast, delivered to the bathroom door, as I got ready for school. October signaled prep time for our annual pumpkin carving party and the end of April meant the wallpaper sample books would come out to make May baskets for our neighbors. Road trips meant carrot sticks and bathroom stops at fancy hotels. The first Friday of the month we served at the Union Gospel Mission, my brother and I singing while I played my tambourine (yes, I’m serious).

I am mindful of these family rituals as Easter is upon us. I grew up in a home where the Christian celebration of Holy Week was replete with cherished church services, spiritual depth, and the most elaborate egg hunt I’ve ever been privy to. My brother and dad had to make maps so they could locate any unfound eggs so they wouldn’t rot.

What are the rituals by which your rhythm is set? What do you do when you first wake up? How do you ease yourself (or not) into sleep each night? How do you mark the changing seasons? In what way do you celebrate birthdays and life transitions and death? What do you do when it’s quiet?

The line between rituals and habits is a fine one. I like to think that rituals are chosen, created out of intention and planning. Habits, on the other hand, are fallen into. They are often counter to ones’ real choosing. There are healthy habits, of course, but these seem to me to be more ritual. More chosen. More work than habits ever are. It may be arbitrary, but it’s my way of thinking.

Every day provides new opportunities for habits or rituals. For automatic behavior or well made choices. Going to synagogue on Friday night, 7-11 after a workout, or having an egg hunt on Easter can be habit or ritual. So can checking out your reflection in every window you pass or getting out your cell phone (or, what I believe would be more aptly called your “pocket computer”) every time you’re bored or idle.

Last night my family was in the car together. As soon as I put the key in the ignition every one of my family members got their phones out and were interacting with them. They were sharing about what they were seeing on their screens but even still I felt stirred. We weren’t talking about ourselves or asking about the other. Our heads were down. I realized, “this is a habit.” 

When my children were little cell phones were just coming on the scene. I noticed how my car time with my kids changed as I became increasingly reliant upon that time to return calls. I realized that we weren’t discussing the landscape as much any more and we were rarely singing together. As this dawned upon me I made a conscious choice to not be on my cell phone when in the car with my children. This was not an easy vow to keep. Sometimes, when I was exhausted of interacting with them or we were frustrated with each other for one reason or another, all I wanted to do was bury myself in a conversation with someone else. At other times I wanted to make my silent promise known in order to play the martyr card (“I’m keeping myself from doing something I really want to do so that I can be available to you...you’d better praise me and honor me for that!!!!” Oh how sad I am to admit how often that temptation hit.). Sometimes I just broke my commitment and called away. I was far from wholly virtuous or perfect. Overall, however, I feel glad that we shared many discussion-filled drives and plenty of “I’m so frustrated with you I could scream” seething and silent rides as well. We learned to tell each other when we didn’t want to talk and learned to look up and about. Our ritual was that car rides were for togetherness, spotting things, and sometimes for playing games.

Rituals are important to our souls for so many reasons. They tell us what to expect and let us know we can trust ourselves to do some things that help us mark time. They can pave the way for growth and development and depth of experiences. Habits that are evolved into, on the other hand, often act to keep us in one place and bar us from intentional action.

So many of our rituals, these days, are wound around technology. We locate charging stations to plug into every night before bed. We check Facebook. We buy apps and use them until the newest version comes out. We get home from being away and walk straight to our computer. We rely on our phone to keep us from being bored in line or allow us an escape path when a conversation gets long or when we just want to be alone in a crowd. Away from technology we chose our food and our friends and our activities out of habit more than intention and can go long periods of time without ever forcing ourselves to be uncomfortable. Whole lives maybe.

What if we attended to our rituals? What if we looked up and looked boredom square in the face? The same with silence, wait time, and opportunities to delay? What would happen if we assessed our habits and sought to replace one or two with intentional choices that might connect or inspire or stretch us? What if we squirm? What if there are awkward silences? What if we stop looking in the window, or mirror, or reflective surface and attended to others instead? What if we fight the urge to take our phone out just one time a day? What if the ritual became asking ourselves, “How can my actions lead to a greater respect for myself and other?” What if?

dadalookit!

This morning I watched longingly as a mom and her two young children sauntered past my window. They were walking slowly and looking up at the trees. I could imagine the dialogue between them. “Mom, look, there’s a nest.” “Oh...you’re right. Good eye!” “Mom, look, there’s a bird.” “Oh, gosh, you are so observant.” “Mom, look. Mom, look. Mom, look.”

Every child has their own way of asking to be watched. My own nephew’s phrase of choice goes something like, “Dadalookit.” “Mamalookit.” It isn’t four distinct words, “Daddy/Mommy look at this.” It’s more of a singular sound and it is distinctly his. Before he spoke, the sound was a movement and he would gently, but firmly, put a hand on each side of our faces and direct our gaze to whatever it was he wanted us to see. He, like every one of us, wants to be watched. 

We all do things every day to either attract or defend against the notice of others. We accomplish, we please, we shock, we comply, we dress, and we perform. In our own unique ways what we’re really saying is, “Worldlookit, here I am, notice me, validate me, tell me I matter.”

In a world where every coffee date, small group get together, and even chance meeting is blogged, photo texted, and tweeted we have more ways than ever to be seen. The new narcissism emerging from this trend is noticeable. So are the ways in which our efforts to be seen are causing commensurate feelings of loneliness, failure, and lack in those that are doing the looking. And, really, isn’t that all of us? When logging into Facebook gives us opportunity to know what parties we were excluded from, our fear of rejection is fueled. When watching the walls of “friends” serves to clarify the lack of action on our own, we feel the fool. When comparing the photos of our thinner (at least from that angle), richer (in objects, wealth, friends, or beauty), and more accomplished (at least in our own minds) friends to our own, the disparity between their “more” and our “less” takes us down.

To be fair, there are positives to the way in which our technology connects us. We are more aware of the day to day lives of a broader range of friends. We can get the word out about timely events and occurrences and have access to friends far away. We can organize ourselves to support important causes and needs and communicate with the world in important new ways. These are gifts. 

There is something strangely powerful, however, about broadcasting our lives and being seen for what we do that is not always about gifting. There is a heady sense of thrill when a post (or tweet or text) elicits a long string of responses or when a photo gets forwarded (and forwarded and forwarded and forwarded...) or when people publicly admire something we’ve done. When we say “Worldlookit” and it looks, we light up. 

The problem is, we light up...for a moment. Then someone else’s “Worldlookit” distracts the gaze of our community and we are left look-less. Or lonely. Or envious. Or hungry for the attention we were enjoying. Little of this is conscious and even less is chosen.

As water will fill our empty bellies and make us feel full, so will the look from others make us feel attended to. That’s important. Read it again. As water will fill our empty bellies and make us feel full, so will the look from others make us feel attended to. Truthfully, however, being attended to merely by being seen is yet a drop in the bucket of what we most deeply long for.

We long, I believe, to be known. To be seen “through” in some ways. While it terrifies us, we want what is real about ourselves to be met by others. The external things we do and ways we present ourselves are little more than symbolic Facebook walls which we use to either accurately or deceptively communicate about what is inside of us.

How many times have you posted a status update that reads, “Sitting at Starbucks feeling lonely and regretting the fight I picked with my friend” or posted a photo of yourself from an angle that is less than flattering? How many times have you received a tweet that says “I am insecure and could really use some genuine affirmation”? Instead of these honest reflections we tailor our disclosures hiding within them an often unconscious desire to be seen instead of known.

I am far from inexperienced here. My own flip-flopping tendencies to both desire and be uncomfortable with the attention of others leads to paralysis in the face of social media. I avoid my personal Facebook wall for two reasons: 1) the reality that telling the world what I’m up to in any particular moment doesn’t feel very different than a narcissistic entitlement to direct the spotlight to myself and 2) the possibility of how I’ll feel when others more accomplished, more celebrated, and more-in-every-way-than-me post status’ that push my “less than” buttons. Even though I know that walls provide only a small and uni-dimensional view of my “friends,” I still fall prey to the opportunity to compare and evaluate that it breeds. I know how to ask to be truly known and yet I still, at times, settle into a desire to be seen instead. It’s so much tidier and focused, you see, if I control what you see of me. 

My mind knows, however, that “Worldlookit” becomes so much more powerful and rich when it is converted to “You who I know to be safe and caring and care-full, please know me.” My mind knows but my automatic and culture shaped behaviors still get the best of me. It is hard to push past the easier need to be seen to the harder work of asking and inviting to be known.

And so, I repeat, again and again: Being seen is satisfying. Being known is meaningful. Being seen is stimulating. Being known is risky. Being seen often feels safe and within the range of my control. I can hide from, avoid, and divert being seen. Being known, however, involves an openness that is opposite of hiding, avoiding, and diversion. It feels vulnerable and terribly out of control and exposed and wonderful and deep and frightening and wonderful and fearful and free and messy and substantive and inconvenient and wonderful and wonderful and wonderful and...

miracle suit for the soul

today i spoke with two women preparing for trips to sun drenched localles.  one, nearing forty, two children, thin, going to be with her husband who's traveling for business.  one, thirty something, fuller figured, a lover of people, hoping to stay inside as much as possible during an extended holiday with her husband and young children.  both are at-home mothers.  both are active in their children’s lives.  both are going at their husband’s request.  both are also mortified about having their skin exposed.

if your eyes were closed and you didn’t know either of these women you would perceive few differences.  the smaller woman is on bathing suit number 5, finding none that cover her “bumpy, lumpy” hips and thighs.  in her mind there is no miracle suit that is miracle enough.  the curvier woman is terrified of other’s perceptions...fearing they’ll judge her for not “keeping herself up.”  in many ways both are equally paralyzed and driven by their hyper-vigilance about their self-diagnosed flaws.

why is it that we hate, do battle with, compare, and place unrealistic expectations upon our physical appearance?  why have we bought into the message that the elasticity of our skin or the lack of dimples on our thighs is what matters?  many make the good and obvious point that the media feeds us images of what is beautiful and we eat them...spitting out what we have swallowed as impossible expectations and desires of ourselves and others.  i think, however, the issue lies deeper than this.  it lies at the center of our souls...at our core...where we find the seat of our desire to be known and to belong.  to belong, we think, we must be certain things, ascribe to certain ways of being, we must “look good,” inside and out.
 

am i saying that my two friends value only superficial beauty or fleeting youth?  no...i am saying that we all struggle with how we are perceived, with what we ourselves and others think of us and how we are held in their minds.  these are the bigger, the heavier, the messier realities of our existence.  the lighter, more external struggles seem “cleaner,” more accessible, and more familiar.  so we chose to worry about and attend to our external, bodily homes in deference to doing internal housekeeping.  it’s easier, in our current relational economy, to shop for the perfect miracle suit than to spend that energy working at confronting our internal cellulite...the lumpy, “unsightly” imperfections we hope to hide.  what this means, however, is that the connections that we do forge are, in our minds, based upon the image we project rather than on the reality of who we are.  as spray tans, highly supportive bathing suits, and dim lighting allow us to put our best physical selves forward; selective disclosure, denial, and over-control allow us to appear connected when in reality we are alone, unknown, and afraid.

if relationship is to happen, if community is to deepen we must create an environment in which we prudently invite ourselves and others to care more about the feeling of the water and sun on our skin than about who’s thinking what (including what we ourselves are thinking) about the condition of our thighs, or stomaches, or beliefs, or struggles, or realities.  would not the world be beautiful if we greeted each other with exuberance about the insides, looking past the crummy bathing suit to the soul?  to the soul.  to the soul...

1/2002

the sound of you

Once, when my son was very young and very sick, I wriggled into bed with him to sing to him. Well into my second verse Connor’s fevered eyes opened and stared at me. I stopped singing because his look was so intent. After several seconds of gazing he said, “I don’t want the sound of you Mommy, I just want you.” Enough said. I got quiet.

How often I forget these words when things are hard, when my insides are stirred, or when others need comfort. How rarely are my responses to self and other born out of a still silence, a quiet readiness.

Quiet is hard to come by these days. No longer do we plough the field that sits miles from our neighbor, grind the wheat in our isolated single room home, or go to bed when it gets dark. Instead we pop in our earbuds, instantly chat while doing our homework, surf while watching Oprah, and light up our nights with screens of all kinds. While we are filling up our moments we are neglecting our souls.

We are a lonely people, I believe. Some of us are lonely for others, some for roles and responsibilities we no longer fill, some for our pasts, some for places. I believe that all of us share, however, a deep and growing loneliness regarding our inner most beings. As the external demands and opportunities for distraction have grown, our discipline regarding quiet, stillness, spiritual reflection, and solitude (in its truest and healthiest forms) has shrunk. Silence is squeezed out of our day to day existence and we are lonely for our selves. 

I am often shocked by how out of touch with my deepest core I can become in an instant. I am distracted in prayer, my mind wanders when I meditate, I can’t finish a task without thoughts of seven others breaking through. In these moments it could be easy to convince myself to pop in my ipod and listen to a lecture, use a guided prayer or meditation podcast, or work to perfect the art of multi-tasking. If I resort to these things, however, I am training myself to be still only to the sound of the voice of another or the calling of my culture. While neither of these things are terrible they do nothing to acquaint me with my biggest detractor (and possible helper)...myself.

Quiet stillness isn’t always easy for me. I “use it” as a space within which to beat myself up, to indulge in fantasies of grandeur, and to plan days that are so insanely packed that I can’t keep up with myself. Even still, however, when I do not practice sitting still or giving my mind room to roam it is obvious. I am out of step with myself, my God, and my deepest values.  On the flip side, when I do practice the discipline of quiet attending it makes all the difference in the world.

Wherever you are, grab a snack. Gobble down a mouthful of it. Now, take a moment to take a breath, quiet yourself, then take another bite and attend to that which you are eating. Really pay attention. What does it feel like? Taste like? How does it linger? What does your mouth feel like when you are done? Now do this with your soul, your self, your inner most being. Take a moment. Be still. Pay attention. What do you hear? What do you see? What do you feel? Notice. Attend. Keep trying.

Sometimes the sound of us is the last thing we need. Ranking at the bottom of the list are also the sounds of culture, of status quo, and of the habitual speed at which we move. Perhaps today, right now, in this very moment you can find a way to want just you...not the sound...just you.

the adoptive auntie: helping extended families understand bonding and attachment

It is never easy to become a parent.  It is wonderful, it is miraculous, it is fulfilling.  It is not, however, easy.  Being an adoptive parent takes that lack of ease and multiplies it by 200 (or more).  Nothing is known and you’re jumping into a game you haven’t been present for at the end of the first quarter.  It’s hard.

Being an adopted child isn’t easy either.  It is wonderful, it is miraculous, and it is fulfilling.  It is not, however, easy.  You’ve likely had multiple care givers, possibly insecure attachments, and, many times, too little stimulation.  It’s hard.

Being the extended family of this parent/child mix also lacks ease.  You’ve spent months (sometimes years) praying for, thinking about, helping prepare for, and anticipating becoming an auntie, uncle, grandma, grandpa, cousin, etc to this precious new little one and now all that is expected of you is restraint.  It’s hard.

I know this by experience.  One of the roles I have looked most forward to in life was that of “Auntie.”  When my nephew Ethan came home at seven months from a Russian orphanage, the self control required of me was immense.  I was helped, however, by the knowledge of his needs that my doctoral training had provided.  It strikes me that others don’t have that benefit, so I offer these thoughts to help extended family members think about their roles in their nieces’, nephews’, granchildrens’, and cousins’ lives within the broader context of the adoptive nuclear family.

When most of us encounter new families our first impulse is to want to help.  We want to hold baby so mom can take a shower.  We want to change baby to give mom and dad a break from the frequently required task.  We bring meals.  We take pictures.  And, we can’t wait to be wanted.  We live for the moment that our new little one reaches out to us.  It will mean that they know us, love us, and want us.

For an adopted child and her parents these kinds of helps provide special challenges.  When such a child (especially one who has been in an orphanage...facing an initial primary loss and then a secondary loss in being removed from the orphanage care givers) reaches out to people, they are looking for indiscriminate care.  What they need, instead, is intimate bonding with their parents.  They need ALL of their primary care-giving responses to come from the two people who are “theirs.”  While this is painful in the short term to all of us who are used to feeling loved and important in the life of a newborn by getting to care and cuddle and comfort them, it provides the basis for a life time of loving, securely attached relationships in the child’s future.

Without these initial months of mostly watching the bonding (and supporting the new parents by cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, listening to them, and enthusiastically supporting their very difficult job of being only-care-givers) your precious niece will never be able to develop the relational circuitry in the brain that is required for secure attachment.  Your son or daughter, brother or sister is not trying to be withholding when they request that you not change, feed, or hold your newest family member...they are doing the painfully difficult task of re-wiring their child’s mind and soul to know that it is o.k. to rely on them, that they will not fail them, that they are reliable sources of comfort and basic needs, and that they are their mommy and daddy.

Due to advances in brain imaging, a belief that many of us have held for years is now “provable.”  Secure attachment during the early years of development is crucial for most of the executive functions of the brain to develop.  This means that a persons’ ability to have self control, healthy relationships, attuned communication, and a cohesive sense of self is directly related to the security and consistency of early relationships.  This means that a child needs to be held and have their basic needs met within the context of trusting relationships in order to wire the brain to be able to have those same kinds of relationships later in life.  As you are supporting this kind of attachment for your extended family it can be helpful to remember that there are many ways of feeding, holding, and responding to a child.  While your arms may not carry her, your mind can hold her firmly in your attention.  You can hold her in your prayers and thoughts.  You can feed her with words of affirmation and by nourishing her parents with support as they engage in this exhausting process of bonding.  While these are not the first forms of holding and feeding you may think of, they are real and they are powerful.

It is easy for extended family members to slip up in this period and swoop up a crying baby, to feel as though they are walking on egg shells with parents who are holding firm boundaries, and/or to be hurt when mom and dad don’t involve them in baby care tasks.  It is imperative, however, that we, as this childs’ extended family, work to re-define our important roles.  Mom and dad need all the emotional and physical support we can give them and our best way of loving baby is to point her back to mom and dad at every turn.  In developing a strong love for them she is building the basis that will allow her to love us well later.  Teasing mom and dad about their rigidity and/or “begging for just one hold” does not help here.  Neither does telling them about all the other adopted kids you know who are just fine.  This is the time in life to welcome the opportunity to learn the discipline of waiting.  Your future relationship with this sweet child will be nothing but deeper because of your patience.

It is also important to know that most adoptive families experience a honeymoon period where the attachment and bonding seem to be going so smoothly that none of you remember why in the world there are all these seemingly rigid boundaries around your precious ones’ care.  It is tempting to sneak in boundary violations at this point and it is even tempting for the parents to bend the boundaries, leading to confusion about further interaction guidelines.

It is imperative during these times to be watchful and mindful of why the boundaries were established in the first place.  Your wee one is highly developed in directing himself and his attention to whomever meets his need, he has also learned flexibility in responding to whoever cares for him and to keep his needs quiet.  He is likely relieved and enjoying what may feel to him like a vacation from the monotony and want of the orphanage.  It is likely, however, that he is not done getting all he needs in the way of specific and targeted secure attachment to his primary relational objects...his parents.  Exactly because the boundaries are in place is why he seems to be doing so well.  Don’t make any changes in them until you have done careful considering and soul searching without the pressure of a deadline or audience.  If you feel tempted to ask to provide a basic need (extended family) or to do away with a care guideline you’ve previously set (parent), give it a day or two, lots of discussion, and use discernment over time.

During the months that mom and dad are doing all the responding to baby’s most basic and primary needs (especially feeding, changing, soothing to sleep and waking, and comforting) your role is both large and small.  Large in the ways you never thought and small in the ways you imagined.  Be patient...all too soon your precious new love will be running into your arms and this time of waiting will be but a brief and distant memory. A memory of a time when your new love was wiring his brain to love you well.  Then it will be your turn to love him back...well...

technology half chewed (published in geez magazine)

On a winter day long ago I decided to treat my kids to a pan of hot, bubbly homemade macaroni and cheese. It took forever to grate the cheeses and make the cream sauce. I bought expensive pasta and used real butter on the breadcrumbs that graced the top. Thrilled with my hearty offering I placed it in front of my wee ones who, with wrinkled noses and dumbfounded expressions, declared, “I thought we were having macaroni and cheese.” Much to my dismay, without a blue box and skinny bright orange noodles they had lost their culinary bearings. I find the same is true with technology and relatedness. Texts have replaced conversing and communities are formed in cyberspaces. Kids grow up with screens as siblings of sorts and we carry computers in our pockets to entertain, inform, and direct us. It all feels very “blue box” to me when up against the heartiness of relationship and self knowledge.

Technology is neither a gift nor a curse. It cannot be fairly demonized or praised. It simply is. It empowers its users to harness the masses for relief efforts in Haiti while at the same time reducing the running of the Race for the Cure to mere manipulation of a Second Life avitar. It offers up preschool toys that vibrate, light up, and make sounds. Adolescents plug in to it to keep in touch with their wide spread “friend” community, to explore the world, to “play,” and to try on alternate identities that real life doesn’t allow (oh how easy it is now to take digital photos until just the right one is captured...or created).  Adults get their news from screens, their entertainment from screens, and work on them as well.

Two years ago the Kaiser Family Foundation discovered that the average American was spending 8.5-9 hours a day plugged in to some kind of technology. Today that number has jumped to nearly 11 hours per day, controlling for engagement with more than one technology at a time (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010). Literature reviews suggest that both family talk time and social practice decrease as technology and screen involvement increase. These realities do not come without consequences to our selves and our relationships. With these ever present distractions we are not developing the kind of sturdy selves that can delay gratification, self soothe, or even self stimulate/initiate effectively. In relational realms we are substituting quantity for quality as our connections move increasingly out of the realm of the physical and into the world of the digital. Everything comes from the outside in in a way that has never before been possible and it is compromising us.

Technology, however, is only a part of the equation. We, the “consumers” (oh how I hate that all too true title) of it, play our role in the havoc that technology can wreak. We are good at many things. Moderation is not one of them. Just as 1950’s families became dependent upon the ease of post war convenience foods only to find themselves struggling with obesity, hypertension, and high cholesterol in the 60’s, so too have we made technology a main dish instead of a side. We swallow it whole not noticing that the number of friends attached to our Facebook profiles rarely equate with a sense of deep relational resource when one is in need. We snack on the camaraderie found in massive multi player games while our intimate, real life relationships suffer from a lack of time and attention. We gobble up the idea that constant digitized connection and stimulation can substitute for meaningful relationships, active imaginations, and an ability to be still. We pretend we can soothe ourselves by surfing the web when, in reality, we are only distracting ourselves from the here and now by going far and wide in our cyber lives.  

By becoming intentional and mindful of the ways in which we engage both technology and our real, touchable lives we can establish norms which will allow us to thrive in both spaces. This requires a realistic and honest assessment of our current technology use, an understanding of what drives that use, and a willingness to break bad habits. Are we spending too much time in cyber worlds or is our real issue the content we are interacting with? Do we push ourselves to maintain our face to face communication skills or are we losing our conversational muscles? Can we sit still? Be quiet? Tolerate boredom? Wait?

I somehow want to make space for balance. I am striving for a sturdy sense of self and an ability to take relational risks, to talk with people as comfortably as I can text them, to have an iPod and be able to sit in silence. I’ve decided that there’s room for blue box and homemade on the same table...sometimes even on the same plate.