Love The One You’re With?

Texting is a hot button right now. People either love it (those doing it) or hate it (those being ignored by the person doing it.)

Oprah is even throwing her clout around getting people to promise not to text or phone while driving. A good idea.

The last time we visited Brittany, both times we took her out to dinner she was texting through most of the meal. She seemed to think it was OK because she included us in the “conversation” with her friend. She’s not the only one though, and it has always bothered me when people answer their cell phones while we’re having a conversation. I believe that “in person” trumps people who can leave messages.

There was an article in the Boston Globe recently that discussed how kids use electronic devices as a crutch: to get out of social interaction, as an excuse for being rude, or as a way to always appear occupied. The writer called it fauxting. One of the online commenters wrote, “There are worse things in the world than fauxting, but it’s a pretty sad commentary on the isolation that so many feel even in an era of unprecedented connectivity. You may have 600 friends on Facebook but how many do you really know? How many would you want to have lunch with? You may follow hundreds of people on Twitter but how many of them would you follow to the ends of the earth? We are, on one hand, extremely connected, constantly trying to find bonds with another person. And on the other hand, we're insular and isolating with our behavior when we need to actually interact.”

It’s hard to wrap our minds around how Facebook both connects and separates us and how texting and emails keep us up on each others lives, but rarely creates real conversation.

I had to laugh at Betty White’s Saturday Night Live monologue when she called Facebook a great way to waste an afternoon. She said in her day people felt like it was punishment to look at friends’ vacation pictures and pictures of their children and grandchildren.

And yet, maybe Facebook has its place there. I love to look at pictures that friends put up. Maybe it’s the difference between someone inviting you over to “see my home movies” and posting them for you to “look or not”. I also love that on someone’s birthday their “wall” fills up with Happy Birthday messages and that when someone is sick or has a family member who is sick the prayers pour in. It can really be something!

I do think people care. And they certainly want to stay connected. People simply need to concentrate on one thing (or one person) at a time. Just because Brittany can dry her hair with one hand, text with the other and talk to me, doesn’t mean she should.

In today’s world we’re overloaded with ways to interact, but we’ll figure it out.

We’ll have to, because they’re not going away.

Do kids think their parents are supporting actors in their life story?

Brittany called me to ask if we could have possibly gotten her tax refund because she was online looking at our bank account and noticed a “large amount of money” deposited that day.

First I told her to get out of our account and then I told her we were moving money around to pay for a new roof on our house and if she had waited an hour or so longer she would have noticed the money leave the account again. (And take most of its friends with it!)

THEN I told her that while the government has been doing some really crazy things lately I doubted they would give me her refund.

They might, however, give her ours since they seem to be in the Robin Hood mindset.

John did her taxes for her and it was a bit of a production. She had the three North Carolina jobs from her last semester in college and immediately picked up two new jobs after moving to South Carolina. So he had Federal and two state returns to complete.

Thankfully she isn’t one of the 15.2% of 16 – 29 year olds The Wall Street Journal says is jobless. In fact because of her work schedule we went to Charleston to be with her at Easter thinking she could spend some of her spare time with us.

After a 5 hour drive, long because we blew out a tire minutes from our destination, John and I spent Friday evening at the Art Crawl down in the French Quarter managing to meet up with Brittany after she got off work that night.

Saturday was another work day, so we went to the Farmer’s Market on Marion Square, watched the Easter Bonnet Parade, shopped King Street and wandered around the Market and the College of Charleston while waiting to take her to the beach, dinner and a movie.

Easter Sunday she worked again, so we spent the day at a different beach until she got off and then took her downtown for dinner.

She did manage to introduce us to several new friends along with her roommate’s new puppy, and we were able to deliver her bicycle and an Easter basket, so all and all it was a worthwhile trip even though time was precious.

While I hate she has to work so much, I hang on to my hopes that by doing so she’ll have more money in her own account someday and won’t feel the need to visit ours online.

Maybe she can visit us instead.

Parental Role Change

Within the period of one week; I taught a Sunday School lesson about empowering the next generation, sat through a sermon and a Bible study on parenting and saw the movie Everybody’s Fine.

The lesson about empowering talked about how our ceiling should be our children’s floor. How we want them to start where we leave off. The sermon and Bible study talked about age appropriate parenting. And one critique of Everybody’s Fine said it is about the relationships between empty-nesters and grown kids starting up their own families. It’s about parents transitioning from nurturers and disciplinarians into passive advisors and awkward houseguests.

I got the message. My parenting role is changing. My daughter is an adult and living on her own.

Brittany has always told us everything. In fact we often laughed about how many times she has gotten herself into trouble because she just couldn’t keep what she did to herself.

But it’s different now. When she calls me up to tell on herself, I can’t really discipline her anymore. I can’t tell her to stop doing (whatever) just because “I said so.” I’ve become more of a peer or a friend who can give advice either because I’ve been there or I care about her. But I can’t “make” her do something anymore.

“Don’t do that because I’m your mom and I said so” has become another one of those things that I didn’t realize is over. At one point when I said it, it was the last time I said it. And I don’t remember which time that was. Just like when was the last time I carried her up to bed? When was the last time I chose what she was going to wear that day? Was it the little blue and white dress with the red bow? When was the last time I reminded her to brush her teeth?

So many last times! And I never realized when it was happening!

I have found a blessing in today’s technology though. Some things are in print and can be saved.

These days, instead of calling as she heads upstairs, “Night! I love you!” She texts me or types it while we’re chatting on the computer. I’ve saved some of her best texts: “I love you more than anything in the world times a million!” and “I love you more than you can imagine. Thank you for everything you are to me.”

And I’m going to save them forever. I’m not going to have any of these be the “last one.”

Bombarded by Technology

I’m getting bombarded with technology! John has been getting my Facebook updates on his iPhone for about a week. This not only bugs me because he calls and asks about them, but he’s not even a member of Facebook so I don’t know why he’s getting them.

Then the other morning Brittany called and said she accidently paid some of our car insurance online when she was paying a credit card of hers and got the accounts mixed up. She asked if we could transfer money into her account since she had “paid our insurance for us.” (2 weeks early and not nearly enough.)

THEN, John came into my office and said OnStar had emailed him that one of the tires on my car needed air!

My problems used to be caused either by myself or those close to me. Now because of technology there seems to be no limit to who can create havoc in my life!

No wonder my mind is always racing!

In my yoga class we are told to empty our minds and not think about anything. But then the teacher gets us twisted into pretzel shapes and says things like, “Core in. Relax your eyes. Now relax your mouth. Draw your shoulders back. Now breathe.”

Breathe? Is she crazy? She wants me to do all that and still breathe? But it’s true. When I’m concentrating on all that other stuff I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until she reminds me to breathe.

You would think with all her talking and directions my mind wouldn’t be all over the place, but it is.

Doing an inversion near the mirror I find myself thinking, “My face looks really weird upside down!”

Or when doing a forward fold: “My toes look kind of weird too!”

Sometimes in a pose I’ll think, “My arms look graceful – I should have been a ballerina.”

Other poses I wonder, “Could this actually break my body?”

But at least for the 3 hours a week I’m in class I’m able to focus on the present. Live in the moment and forget my problems and everyone else’s. So I suppose it helps.

And later when I’m sitting in front of my computer with messages pouring into my 5 email accounts, Facebook sending me updates via John, a cell phone and a house phone just waiting to ring with some new glad tiding: I can remind myself to breathe. Just breathe.




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