Kevin Drum points to an opinion piece by Nancy Smiler Levinson in the LA Times about three different parents ignoring their children because of their cell phones:
In the middle of a story, a mother's cellphone rang. She pulled the telephone from her purse and started talking. The librarian stopped reading and asked, "Could you please put the cellphone away?"The mother continued talking, and the librarian repeated her request.
The mother then stood and said, "I'll talk outside the room, if that's what you want," and she turned to leave. Her child, 2 years old, burst into tears and called, "Mommy, mommy" The librarian told the mother it was not permissible to leave a child there, especially now that the child was distressed.
Finally, the mother said into the phone, "I'll call you later," and returned to her seat. She sat the remainder of the story hour, glowering at the librarian.
The moral is:
Once upon a time, parents offered conversation and attention to their children and granted them a measure of respect.
With all due respect to Ms. Levinson, there have always been lousy parents, who find ways to ignore their children. And those children grow up to have children of their own and ignore them in their turn.
The problem is not cell phones, per se. The problem is that there are relatively few people who are capable of being effective, attentive parents.
Parenting: one of the most important jobs in the world, and yet one for which there are so few truly qualified applicants.
Posted by jt at September 13, 2003 02:39 PM