I was sitting all alone in Pizza Cafe LA yesterday waiting for a pizza. (I heartily recommend this weird little Silverlake spot if you live in LA; it offers versions of NY, New Haven, Detroit-style and tavern-style pizzas all under one roof. None are quite what they claim to be, I don’t think, but they’re good.) I heard a small voice to my left and turned and saw a little girl skip in, she was maybe six, followed by her father. I know he was her father because the chef/owner hailed the girl as she walked in and then asked the guy who he was and he said he was her father, that the girl’s mother had been in before, but he had not. The owner got to work on the girl’s margherita (which she’d ordered by name), he actually put it in front of mine in the queue, so to speak, which I had no problem with, she was a kid, young hunger matters more than mine, and then the father and daughter sat down. This is kinda how it looked…
…for fifteen minutes. She tried several times to start a conversation with her father by asking whether he preferred Donkey Kong or Mario Bros., but she didn’t make a dent in the wall of attention his brain had erected between his eyes and his phone. (I have a real photo of the man ignoring his daughter but I feel like putting it here would be aggressive and possibly illegal, so…okay.) I vowed then that from now on I would put my phone away while I was with my children. If you think I sound like a crank, unsubscribe, please — to drag children into this world where they have to suffer and die and then not even engage them while they’re whole and safe and with you is insane, isn’t it…?
See, I usually try to look on the bright side. I usually say, “Well, yeah, okay, but maybe parenting the way you imagine it is over, maybe the problem is she doesn’t have her OWN phone, we don’t know WHAT people are going to be like or FOR in a thousand years, what makes you think YOU know? Maybe all he does is call her a piece of shit, maybe this is the GOOD part of her day” — etcetera. (It hit me the other day ETSY means “etcetera.” Am I the last one to show up at that party? I think I might be.) But she kept on asking him about Donkey Kong so it seemed like she wanted to chat — and let’s not even get into what it means that he likely plays both of those games a lot (and again, I might be old and cranky, let’s assume I am) — but I just couldn’t get to being positive about it because she never asked to be born. I swear to God, the best thing to remember is: nobody asked to be born, to have to pay with a smile or sex or money for everything they’re born needing — and did I mention that he didn’t even explain to her that he needed to do some thing on his phone right then? He just kept texting and ignoring her. It was grim. It would have been better if he’d snapped at her and given an indication he was doing something important, but you could tell he wasn’t. If I had to guess, he was arguing with a friend about a movie or another friend — he had that basic, focused, judging consciousness pouring off him. It made me think of a poem by James Merrill…
… and the line “Think twice before causing anything to just be.” (You might be hungry right now, but you’ve never been hungrier than I am to show you my picture of this character from Achewood who’d somehow managed to take on human form and get laid and how he sat there ignoring his daughter.) I know I sound mean, so should I blame the phone? Apple? The ape in 2001 who made the first stick to hit someone with and invented, in his way, the iPhone? Is this a story about addiction? Should I have compassion for this guy? I just don’t.
Don’t get me wrong, there are times to just be quiet with your kids. You don’t have to fill every moment with action. But do we think it’s optimal to text for fifteen minutes while your daughter tries to have a conversation with you?
One of my 500 favorite songs of all time is GET OFF THIS by Cracker, in which David Lowery (of the even better band CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN, about whom I will write lovingly on Friday, for whatever that’s worth) sings, “If you want to change the world, shut your mouth and start this minute,” so that’s what I’ll do now, I’m going to shut my mouth and start this minute. All I can add is: I should have adopted this good habit way sooner. Shame on me.