Two Broken Rules and Endless Ideals

I’m breaking two of my own rules as I type.

The first broken rule is that I am writing a blog, and I have absolutely nothing to say. (Yet.) The second is that my baby is sitting on my lap while I use my laptop, exposing her to a screen.

I have offered her a pen and a hair clip, and still she lusts after the things of technology. I see in her unreasonableness an archetype of human nature, a picture of Eve, etc.

The first broken rule:

I had made a pact between myself and the universe that I would never write blogs just to write blogs, only if I had something I wanted to write about.

It has, however, been months since I posted, and there still isn’t anything that I want to write about.

I am in a sort of posting inertia. I have also been focusing on other projects, and as my time for laptop work is limited to my baby’s naptimes, those other endeavors take up most of that allotted space.

So here I am, just checking in to say that this blog site- begun by me- is on my conscience like a half-raised child poked into a corner somewhere, that I haven’t forgotten about it, and that I might be back regularly someday when I get over worrying about the big picture.

You see, I fret about the theoretical implications of writing blogs. One of the problematic things of writing for a public is that what I write about my life affects how people see me, and how they see Charles, and how they see Winter.

This fact is difficult for me to accept, and my position on it has been one of the proverbial ostrich. To me, the lifestyle pieces of my writing are disconnected from my personality, like an extra arm, like a funny story that one tells at a Christmas family gathering, nothing more.

No matter how faithfully one tries to copy from real life, a written account is always at least slightly distorted, partly because one’s perspective is always limited, partly because no words can impart a complete picture. Lives and people are too complex to be owned by words.

There is a huge risk, however, that people may think our lives and characters much better than they are. There is also a risk that people may think our lives and characters are worse than they are, although I worry less about this.

There is another problem of writing for the public, also an identity issue.

I continually caution myself to be careful about the role writing plays in my sense of self-importance. I do not wish to make being “a writer” my identity. The world is tired of people who make their “art” the sacred cow, and so am I. Only weird people can assume the “artist” aura successfully, and I do not think I am weird enough to pull it off.

Thank goodness.

I enjoy writing things down occasionally, so I do it. I like sharing something I am pleased with, so I started this blog. I am not one of those people who “simply has to write.” I am not an Emily of New Moon. I would not die at all if I could never write anything again, not even a little tiny bit dead.

That being said, I am aware that creativity is terribly important to the human existence, and that developing our perceived talents is Biblical and blessed, if not always practical and productive.

I will also mention that I think art or creativity at its purest (purest, not most talented) form is worship, and that, in my opinion, pure art is unheard of.

You will never hear of it, but you might see it.

Look to the un-neurotic and completely uncreative woman who never dreamt of being artistic but is thrilled with the sagging birthday cake shaped into nondescript kitty (which according to Winter’s lexicon can include anything from a chicken to a balloon) that she made for her enthusiastic and worshipful four-year-old.

The issue is this: It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for an art to be practiced with an utter want of self-consciousness. Yet art can also hardly be improved without self-awareness. This is what I wrestle with.

You may disagree with me, and I welcome dissent. Comment below, and we will have a vigorous discussion. If you come at me with too successful of arguments, however, I warn you that I am likely to bow out with the plea that “I have to do what works for me”, that wonderful flop of methodology. We will all end confused and sore at each other.

I conclude that we all need Jesus.

The second broken rule:

I feel strongly about children and exposure to technology. Before Winter was born, I read a book called Surviving the Tech Tsunami by Gary Miller, developed opinions, and invented all sorts of standards for myself and Charles.

Charles agreed with my concerns as I processed the book out loud to him, but he finally put a stop to it when I was starting to make remarks like, “Maybe by the time our children are in school, we might let them look at our phones for five minutes every day. No more.”

“You can’t do that, Miss,” he objected. “If we have such a legalistic focus on it, then that’s the way our children will look at it. All they’ll be able to think about is insisting on their five minutes a day and trying to push the lines and get another minute or so. Let’s just live our life and do things with our children and get them interested in other things like being out of doors and reading and stuff so that although they might want our phones some, they have appetites for other things. Let’s do lots with them.”

Charles’s wisdom is peculiarly suited to my flamboyant anxieties and ideals. He lets me run on chattering about my insights, but he has a way of setting me straight that leaves me silent and thinking for, well, a minute or so at least.

I’ve never forgotten his point about legalistic systems. I immediately applied it to church life and myriad other issues, but mostly it is useful for coping with my own ideals. I struggle to be disciplined, so I counteract it by proposing ridiculous regimens that I can’t live up to and immediately collapse back into the status quo.

On the technology and children question… in some ways we have been able to stick to our standards. Winter is not generally allowed to have our phones, although about every half an hour, she gets her hands on some device or other. Hope springs eternal, and about twenty times a day, she thinks that this is it… this time she will play with the phone unrestrained and uninhibited.

Both Charles and I work with her to not touch them, with varying success. She definitely goes through seasons.

It isn’t that she never gets to look at anything on a screen. Charles or I occasionally show her videos of her baby cousin or other little friends or let her see what we are doing.

We try never to use a phone as a babysitter, however. I think that using phones or any screen to get my child out of my way would be as bad for me as it would be for her.

A friend told me once, “Never say you won’t give your baby a phone because I guarantee you at some point when you are driving with friends, you will give your baby your phone to keep him from screaming so you can talk. So just don’t say you won’t.”

Confession time: I recently returned from a trip to see my family. Charles was unable to go along, and I drove a total of about twenty-five hours alone with my one-year-old. Winter did remarkably well, much better than I expected. Once, however, when she was upset and crying to be out of her car seat, I thought, “What if… what if?”

I did.

I handed her my phone.

She threw it on the floor.

Charles and I prefer anything Winter looks at on a screen to be a shared experience. I think media exposure for children is permissible and even a healthy thing in tiny increments and as part of family fun.

Sometime, in years to come on rainy Saturday nights, I will show my children The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins. Someday we will watch films of whales and tigers, and then grapple with the bad dreams that follow. We will make memories and develop inside jokes and expand our imaginations together.

What I have been least successful in is in my resolve to not be on my phone when she is around. I have tried different approaches such as leaving my phone in my room and going to my room to answer messages. Sooner or later, however, I need my phone for a recipe, or because I am listening to something, or because I want to take a picture of Winter, or because of an engaging chat, and out comes the phone.

Some days I do badly at this, and I go to bed, promising the universe that tomorrow I won’t be on my phone at all. At all. Like… I won’t look at it once.

I really struggle with realistic goals.

In being a wife and a mother, I fear myself because I sense my own weakness. One of the hugest motherhood worries I have faced, other than whether people would think me careless for not using a baby gate for my stairs, is how to overcome my absentmindedness.

When I am in public or with a friend, I get so caught up in the interaction that my daughter suffers. I know she does, although I am not exactly sure in what way because, you see, I wasn’t watching.

When I am at home, my mind is a million miles away doing what my youngest brother-in-law calls Missy Thinking Too Much. It’s not that I think valuable thoughts. It’s just that I am so busy thinking them.

I worry every day about whether or not I am neglecting my child. Then, again, what about teaching her to be independent?

As matters stand, when she comes to me with a book or a toy, I set aside what I am doing if at all possible and pick her up and hold her close and hope to atone for anything I might have missed.

But how do I know if I am responding to her every time if I wasn’t paying attention? What if she tried to get my attention and I didn’t see? Or what if she is so hopeless about attracting my notice that she doesn’t even try, but inside in her little toddler brain, she wonders what it would be like to have a mother?

Other mothers respond to their children so effortlessly. As frustrating as it is to be the other conversationalist, I admire women who stop in the middle of a sentence to look at their child who needs them.

I want to be like that.

I am jealous for Winter to have a mother that is mentally involved with her.

I guess I’ll have to get rid of my phone, my laptop, and all my books as well as my friends.