It never ceases to amaze me why families ever bother to dine out. Everyone arrives jubilant with the prospect of having a fun meal together, a well-deserved treat. Smiles are passed all around as each family member squeezes into the booth, a high chair pulled up for the toddler, menus cordially handed out and a chorus of "thank you” offered up. Hunger seeming to have obliterated the lengthy history of hellish dine-outs. "I'm starving," the four-year-old daughter professes, clapping her hands together. The nine-year old son sits with a newly slumped face, realization kicking in of being ripped from his friend's house to be dragged along on some masochistic family fun-time at the Stuff Your Face For A Buck Emporium. Eyes glued on the menus, the husband and wife scan the choices while the son and daughter fight over sharing the third menu. The toddler commences dropping things, pointing at them and shrieking for their immediate and constant ret...
We are surviving. Six months ago, I made the brave— yet possibly annihilating— decision to cut the internet at home. Immediately, upon disconnection, I expected my children to rally for my execution. However, contrary to expectations, my children began sputtering, gasping for breath, pushing forth into rebirth. Was it possible to survive without being plugged in? My family grumbled for a while. They challenged my firm stance, my claims that television and the internet corrupt, with the stock accusations so often directed at parents: "It's always what you want. We have to do what you want." This went on for a while, but then— like all arguments— the words soon lost their freshness, their power. The argument became stale and the family settled into the idea of life without the love/laugh/death/sex (of other people's imagined lives) mainlined directly into our mental veins. Contrary to what I expected, the bored proclamation: "The...