I’ve been a mommy to a kindergartner every few years since 1996. That was the year our first child began their education. Since then, I’ve shepherded six children through the school gate, pestering them (especially our boys), to put on their sweaters, pressing plastic lunch pails into their little hands, and licking my fingers to slick down wispy hair. The other day, I asked a longtime public school teacher how she thought today’s youngest elementary students were faring. Overall, she said the kindergartners were doing fine, it’s the parents that concerned her. When they come to pick up their children many are on their smartphones, talking, texting, facebooking. Everyone’s plugged in. I feel sad for the children, said the teacher.

This really hit me. So I’ve taken a good, hard look at mommies, myself included, and this is what I see. Nowadays, everyone wants to be your facebook friend, your pinterest friend, your linkedin friend. Where is that friend who will help you be the best kindergarten mom you can be? The best wife you can be? The best woman of God you can be? Moms don’t need more Internet friends. What we really need are friends who walk alongside us and hold us accountable and pray for us.

Long gone grandmothers would roll over in their graves if they could see today’s mothers on their smartphones and computers while their children and husbands and houses suffer for lack of attention. Or see families split up by a television or computer screen in every room of the house, or a cell phone in every hand, with the world stealing our souls away. Okay, maybe not stealing our souls, but at the very least, stealing our affections away from living and breathing human beings. My grandparents had one telephone connected to a wall at a built in booth in their living room. That booth was used to pay bills and talk on the phone. I never saw my grandma sit and visit on the phone until she put her house and yard in proper order. Until her husband and family were tended to like they were her greatest treasure. Because family was her greatest treasure. I remember my grandma laughing on the phone, really enjoying herself, but this wasn’t often. Her phone was a luxury, not a lifeline.

If we could just see our cell phones as a luxury instead of a necessity we’d all be better off. Putting social media on that luxury list would also really help. Since my grown daughters introduced me to Pinterest awhile back, I’ve struggled even more to limit myself online. After my first weekend pinteresting, I wanted to scream, “HELP! Someone save me! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up because I can’t stop pinteresting!” No joke, I prayed, “Please Lord, get me back to my Bible, back to my family, back to chasing dust bunnies. Help me stop pinteresting!”

Pinterest was so much fun, but it didn’t do the laundry, and it didn’t feed my heart and soul. Provided some heart and soul junk food maybe, but not the food that truly nourishes: quiet time with Jesus and the Bible, and putting all those hours into loving my husband and children and taking good care of them. And just one day of not doing laundry and the dirty clothes roll around our house like dust bunnies. And the dust bunnies– well they breed like bunnies out here in the country. And I know bunnies. I raised them in 4-H. My husband still teases me about my “rabbit money,” that was the cash I earned selling 4-H rabbits when I was a kid. I don’t think I ever made any real income selling rabbits, but I was always asking my mom for my “rabbit money” so I could buy something.

So now this 1980s kid with “rabbit money” is the oldest kindergarten mom on the playground with a newfangled “smartphone.” A phone that’s smarter than me. Recently, I’ve been reminding myself to put down my smartphone and look into my five-year-old’s eyes when I say, “I’m listening, honey.” And to really listen to my little one, instead of texting or talking to a grownup or checking my email in the school parking lot. At home, it’s worse because my computer is like a forbidden lover stoking my passion for facebook and pinterest and the news, (I’m a nerd, I like the news even though it makes me crazy with all it’s ridiculousness these days). Not to mention, I’m a writer so my computer is my tool of choice. Like a hammer in a carpenter’s hand, my computer gets the job done. Really, if I had to give up any of my gizmos, I’d dump my smartphone long before I’d part with my genius computer.     

I think most of us would admit America has a problem plugging into what’s good, and unplugging from the not-so-good these days. If we all threw away our TV’s, our Internet, and smart phones, and built front porches for our families, and then made some sweet tea, we’d probably be a whole lot better off. 

.