We digital parents: In the past it was possible without a cell phone

My first child was born in the Stone Age. At least that's how it feels to me today. We had nothing: no Instagram, no WhatsApp, no nursing tracker in your pocket. It feels unimaginable to me today.

Because my smartphone has long been my indispensable companion in my mom's everyday life. I definitely take it in my hand 1000 times a day: to read, photograph, shop, make appointments with a pediatrician, and exchange ideas with my friends. It is my alarm clock, my calendar, my address book, my shopping list – and my mobile toddler entertainment program. If my three-year-old son gets tired at the tram stop, we look at picture books together or sort farm animals in the stable provided for them. For this we have caught contemptuous glances and comments on many occasions: typical, these smartphone mums of today. It used to work without a cell phone.

As a mother who had two children before and two children after the beginning of the smartphone era, I can only say: Of course we managed to live with small children without a cell phone. Back then, certain things were certainly easier. And yet I'm so happy with how the phone in my pocket makes my life easier today! I still remember how it was before: the boredom or the endless to-do lists, which, besides all the joy and love for my children, were always part of my everyday life. Until a few years ago, being a mother of small children meant that for the majority of the day there was hardly any contact with other adults.

When we weren't in the crawling group or at PEKiP, we often crouched alone with our babies in our three-room apartments, caught in the same cycle of breastfeeding, choking and sleeping. It's different today, after all, my mom friends are only a message away. While we take care of our babies, we send pictures and encouraging greetings back and forth, exchange ideas and are close to each other – that alone is worth its weight in gold.

Add to that the entertainment that my smartphone enables me: once my youngest daughter has fallen asleep on me again, I can listen to podcasts, watch videos, read blog articles – and all that without moving a millimeter from where I am am right now. And finally: The very concrete relief in everyday family life.

One click, and 30 minutes later the pizza delivery boy rings

Of course I like to go to the supermarket with my children, have them push tiny shopping trolleys and proudly buy my own pretzel. But we do the bulk purchases via the app and have the purchases delivered, which not only saves time but also nerves. And when I'm particularly exhausted, there is even dinner at the push of a button: one click, and 30 minutes later the pizza delivery boy rings.

Like every mother I know, with all the relief I still have a latent guilty conscience because I hold my cell phone in my hand so often. After all, I want to be a loving, attentive, present mom who deliberately enjoys the precious baby and toddler time. Just like all the attentive families on Instagram, the mothers in the photos never have a cell phone in their hands.

The pressure of comparison has increased since we parents are constantly online, I can clearly see that. While I used to talk primarily about the best breastfeeding positions and the frustrating search for good childcare, today I encounter a flood of images on social networks: beautiful pregnant woman's bellies, newborns wrapped in soft blankets, happy babies in expensive baby carriers. For many, the line between showing and advertising is becoming increasingly blurred Insta-Moms' product placement on children's pictures has become a lucrative business – If you build your own family life as an authentic mom brand, you can easily earn four-figure sums with a single cooperation. And also, if you don't want to sell anything, you can usually find yourself in the best light on the Internet, sharing the aesthetically pleasing moments of happiness, because they give the most likes.

Then the cell phone determines our everyday life

And although we digital parents not only see through this game, but also play it ourselves, the constant look into the seemingly perfect life of others has an impact on how we perceive ourselves, our children and our lives. Your own chaotic bedroom is harder to bear, the more seemingly accidental insights we get into the stylish apartments of others. The colorful mix of clothes in our wardrobe suddenly feels shabby in view of the pictures of happy children playing in coordinated pastel shades of the new Berlin eco-start-up.

Insecurity and shame, feelings of guilt and the permanent feeling of not being good enough – that is the other side of being a parent in times of smartphones and social networks. We usually feel that this is not good for us. It is extremely difficult for us to protect ourselves from this. We continuously update our timelines, watch story after story and can hardly tear ourselves away from the lives of others – sometimes even when a child is looking for our attention right in front of us. Smartphones can not only make our lives a little easier, they can also be addictive. Then our cell phone will no longer help us to live our everyday lives independently – it determines our everyday lives. And that's a problem. On particularly busy days, I sometimes find myself groping for the phone in my pocket almost every second, restlessly updating my Twitter feed, my eyes fixed on the small screen in my hand, while the children blur on the horizon.

An alarm signal. Now something is out of balance. The stress grows over my head and in my cell phone I lose myself from a diffuse escape impulse. Then it is time to take countermeasures. Set all notifications to silent, put cell phone in the drawer. Close your eyes, breathe, open your eyes again. And remember what I learned from my clever fellow mothers on the Internet: children don't need perfect parents, and they don't care whether their room is instagramable. What they need is an attentive counterpart in the here and now. A mom who is fine. With you. Where is she.

So I practice balance: I almost always have my cell phone with me, but in "do not disturb" mode. Wear a wristwatch again. And don't pull my smartphone out of your pocket while breastfeeding until my baby's eyes close anyway. We are still miles away from a screen-free everyday life, which was my ideal many years ago after the birth of my first child. Can anyone imagine that at all? No television for children under three? That was the official recommendation at the time, and because I wanted to be a good mother, I tried hard to stick to it. Ten years later, my little son knew at just one and a half how to enlarge photos with his fingers and where to go to the mouse clips on Papa's cell phone. Today he is three and confidently navigates through his own Netflix account.

And is it really true that the brain shrinks from early childhood media consumption?

Is it good? Is it bad? Above all, it's different. Babies and toddlers are growing up in a world where smartphones are everywhere and parents are always online. This is not bad per se, but of course it has consequences. Also for media education. It has gotten much more complicated: Our own parents had to admonish us to press the red off button after Sesame Street and not the expensive phone number for "Wetten, dass ..?" To choose, we face the challenge with our children to somehow negotiate the permanent availability of an inexhaustible selection of children's programs and apps that has no natural end. Switching off has become more difficult where one of the favorite shows starts immediately after one episode. Do we rely on fixed rules or do we decide depending on the situation? Can our child decide for himself when it's over, or is that our responsibility? And is it really true that the brain shrinks from early childhood media consumption?

How big the fear of the small screens is, I experience again and again in everyday life: The nicest parents can get really uncomfortable as soon as they think their child spends too much time on the Internet. Tablets are locked away, WiFi passwords changed, radical bans imposed – all out of concern, of course. Didn't a brain researcher say on TV recently that modern game apps worked like heroin?

Given such horror scenarios, it is no wonder that control technologies for pinpoint monitoring of child media consumption are booming. Then the cell phone switches itself off after 20 minutes without discussion, the tablet sends a message to the parent's smartphone about every activity, and even chat histories and search histories on children's cell phones can be read and tracked on another device using the master password. Sounds brilliantly simple – but there is a catch: being monitored this way quickly gives children the feeling that mom and dad don't trust them. What else would you need all the technology for?

We don't leave our children alone with media usage

We therefore choose a different path with our children: They can largely decide for themselves how long they want to use which media – but we do not leave them alone, we accompany them. That can mean that we spend an entire afternoon exploring the mouse app with our three-year-old son. We wouldn't just let him click from one YouTube video to the next. If we have the feeling that our children hang too much on their cell phones, we talk to them about them. If you are concerned about your Minecraft consumption, we will look for a solution together. And if our little one can hardly get rid of his favorite series, we don't just press the off button, but sit down, talk to him about the exciting happenings on the screen and then gently lure him back from the series world into our reality : "Come on, we're going to feed the rabbits!"

Trust instead of fear – that is our media motto. Yes, sometimes our children sit in front of the screen longer than is recommended for their age. And then there are days when all the devices stay away: because the weather is so good, the new impeller is so exciting and barbecuing in the garden is so much more tempting than any app. And both are okay.

Several recent studies from the United States anyway suggest that there is little to the prophecies of doom from the terrible consequences of modern media use for child development. The most important comes from Dylan B. Jackson from the University of Texas (2018) and says: There is indeed evidence that intensive media consumption can be unhealthy for young children – but this is especially true in combination with other problematic factors. To put it in a nutshell: A child who grows up in front of programs that are not suitable for children, without speaking, cuddling, reading aloud, without playing and without experiencing nature, has a real problem. A child, on the other hand, who grows up in a loving, communicative home with a wide range of sensory experiences, i.e. plays and reads and sings and laughs and digs and bakes and runs in everyday life, can hardly watch Bobo Siebenschläfer as much as it could harm him .

It depends on the mix: Media consumption – even a relatively large amount of media consumption on individual days – does not harm children if they have a life full of fun and games. It becomes problematic when there is no time left to muddle, run around and get dirty from just looking and wiping on smooth screen surfaces.

This is in line with my own experiences: Of course my children grow up with modern media, but we also find a lot of time to tell us stories and secrets. We go shopping together or to the playground and share a giant pizza. And no matter whether we are watching TV together or baking cookies: we trust each other and are close. "And that's what matters." Says my first daughter. The child who was born in the Stone Age. She is now 13 and has long had her own smartphone. She cannot imagine living without the Internet. Nevertheless, your cell phone is often left unnoticed in the corner for hours. For them it has neither the charm of the new nor the forbidden. For them, being able to access the Internet at any time is simply normal. "Mom, chill your life now," she says when I worry again whether we are too much on the screen in our family. "It doesn't matter who looks at the cell phone how often. The main thing is that we're all happy." And as proof, she sends me a selfie of herself and her laughing baby sister, surrounded by colorful hearts.

This article originally appeared on Eltern.de.