Perhaps the presidential election put me over the edge, but it was building before last November, this realization that the Internet might not be good for us.

This reminds me of fourteen years ago when we gave up television because it felt like it was hurting our family. In a nutshell, our five-year-old son told another kindergartner at his school that his babysitter had kissed him and bit his lip. This other kindergartner went home and told her mother who told the police.

Months of a child abuse investigation loomed over our family. Our son didn’t have a babysitter, so when questioned he named the neighbors’ sweet sixteen-year-old babysitter. In the end, our son admitted he’d seen this kiss with the biting of the lip thing on our family’s favorite television show: Friends. That was the death of TV for us. And what a good death it was.

Once free of the tyranny of nightly entertainment, I became a better wife, a better mom, and a better writer. I had so much more time to give to others instead of wasting my time in front of the boob tube watching Friends and all my favorite cooking shows. Without TV, Scott and I talked more, played more with our kids (we put a foosball table in our living room), and had more sex.

So now you know why we have seven kids.

Life was wonderful without television. I bought some cookbooks, learning to cook the old-fashioned way, but then came the age of the Internet. I blame my literary agent for opening Pandora’s box for me. He said I had to get email. And I must blog. What on earth is a blog anyway? I wondered. And Facebook. And Twitter. “What’s a twitter?” I mustered up the nerve to ask my agent. “Well, one of my clients has over 50 thousand twitter followers, she’s getting her book out there before it’s even published, so you need to get on twitter.” I hung up the phone still not knowing what a blog or twitter was.

But following my agent’s advice, I drank the Kool-Aid as they say, got my own email, signed up for Facebook, and learned how to blog. But I resisted joining twitter. Fifty thousand followers sounded terrifying to me. Jesus had twelve followers and he was God. The last thing I needed were followers. What if they followed me into the bathroom like our toddlers did. “Mommy, are you in there? I know you’re in there! Let me in!” Banging on the door. Sure, our toddlers didn’t talk in complete sentences this way, but that’s pretty much what my boys yelled like baby cavemen from the other side of the bathroom door. I didn’t need any more followers, five boys was plenty.

It’s so strange to no longer have a toddler sticking his fingers under my bathroom door. And has it only been eight years since I’ve been on the Internet? It feels like a lifetime. And sometimes a really awful dream. Especially in the morning when I make the mistake of picking up my iPhone before I pick up my Bible. All of a sudden I have three texts, several Facebook messages, and twenty-five emails, along with perhaps a bad review on Amazon that says one of my books offended someone’s clean Christian sensibilities, and my day unravels even before it begins.

If you get nothing else out of this blog post today, please get this one thing: do not pick up your phone first thing in the morning. Just. Don’t. Do. It. Grab your Bible. Grab your baby. Grab a cup of coffee, but do not grab your iPhone or computer to start your day. Trust me on this.

Even though it sometimes ruins my day, I enjoy getting on the Internet. At least I used to enjoy the Internet before Trump arrived in Washington and people on the Internet lost their minds. First the Republicans. Then the Democrats. And then the media. Probably not in that order.

Oh the media… the news has gone mad. Twitter is all aflutter. Facebook is driving me crazy. And Trump winning the presidency surprised me, but didn’t really surprise me. I told Scott before Trump won the Republican nomination, “You watch, Trump will win the presidency because he’s already won over a generation on television.” I didn’t quite believe myself at the time, but perhaps now I do.

I know this is generalizing things tremendously, but there’s a seed of truth here, and a little seed can grow into a very big tree when the soil is right and rain and sun are abundantly provided. Television has great power. And now so does the Internet. It reminds me of the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain pulling people’s strings. And so many of us are becoming lions without courage, scarecrows without brains, and tin men without hearts on the Internet.

The reality is we are a plugged in society, a long ways from Kansas these days, and I’m ready to unplug to get myself home from the land of Internet Oz. I don’t know what this will mean for my toddling little writing career. I’m supposed to be all over social media right now making friends and selling my books. I spent January thinking about it. Praying about it. Twitter has never been my drug of choice, but Facebook has gotten into my blood from time to time. And to keep up with our older kids, I joined Instagram this past year. Mostly, I’m a big Internet newsy. But all the fake news is messing with my mind. I don’t know where the truth ends and the lies begin anymore with the media concerning our country and our new president.

Honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do about the Internet. I’m cutting back. That is certain.

How are you doing with the Internet? Do you need to cut back or cut it out completely for a while for the sake of your own sanity? For the sake of your family? I know women whose marriages have come apart because of Facebook. Yes, this is a generalization as well, like saying guns kill people. Facebook alone can’t destroy a marriage, but social media can do terrible damage to the very real relationships in our lives.

Scott and I now remind each other to turn off our screens when we’re home together. “Let’s talk. Let’s look into each other’s eyes. Let’s kiss,” we say. This is so basic. I know, but so needed in the age of the Internet. Just like we tell our boys all the time, “Get off your screens and go play outside. Go grab your scooters. Go grab some sky. Be real boys, for goodness sake!”

Be a real human being, I’ve been reminding myself lately. Have courage. Have a brain. Have a heart. Get off the Internet and go grab some sky.