Technology has replaced "I spy"

BC (before children), I would look at parents in restaurants whose children were playing hand held games and say to Mr Jones indignantly "Why don't they have a conversation with their children, instead of playing video games at the dinner table? When we have kids, we won't be doing that".

I was such an extraordinary parent before I had kids.

Recently we took a long weekend and went to New York City on the train.  It is a four hour journey. It's a nice ride because you can look out the window and see lots of interesting things as well as being able to get up and move around.


This is what our train journey to New York looked like:

No looking out the window, no seeing interesting things and no moving around.

When I was young, we went on lots and lots of driving holidays.  We drove from Melbourne to Queensland and across the Nullarbor a few times to Perth.  We had some amazing adventures and saw some pretty cool stuff.

On these long drives, my brother and sister and I would play family car games, listen to Dad's "Australian" tapes (I can recite 'The Man From Snowy River' - its my thang), sleep, eat Fantails, read, annoy each other, listen to books on tape (remember the Disney ones that you followed along with a book and the music chimed each time you had to turn the page!), stare out the window for hours watching the scenery go by and of course play "I spy".

We had no DVD players, hand held game units, iPhones or iPads.  

This is not a "it's not like the good ole days" rant because if DVD players and iPads were available back in the "olden days", my siblings and I would have been all over that.

Now, before handing over the electronic devices, we did try to engage Master 4 in a game of "I spy".  He hasn't quite grasped the idea that you have to be able to "see it" in order for us to guess.  So once we have exhausted all the obvious things beginning with "T" (train, tractor, tracks, trees), we are also guessing every other word that he has in his vocabulary beginning with "T" (T-Rex, tiger, trampoline, trumpet etc).  Consequently, he thinks we are pretty crap at it.

In my book, any thing that I can use to my advantage to make my life as a parent just that bit more bearable on a long journey is fine by me.

Did I think that I would hand over the technology so easily?

No.

But I'm over being hoighty toighty and judgemental about it.  

To technology I say...


Bring it.