A picture of a sign at a daycare admonishing parents for paying more attention to their phones than their kids went viral this week. I couldn’t agree with it more. It’s time to get off your phone and start paying more attention to the world around you. I promise it’s far more beautiful than anything on your screen!
Get Off Your Phone and Be Present For Life’s Extraordinary Moments
Given that it’s been shared over a million times, I bet you’ve already seen the viral sign begging parents to get off their phone, right? In case you haven’t, though, here it is (credit goes to Juliana Farris Mazurkewicz, who took the photo):
In case you can’t see it, it reads:
“You are picking up your child! GET OFF YOUR PHONE!!!! Your child is happy to see you! Are you happy to see your child?? We have seen children trying to hand their parents their work they completed and the parent is on the phone. We have heard a child say ‘Mommy, mommy, mommy …’ and the parent is paying more attention to their phone than their own child. It is appalling.”
While I probably would have worded it a bit gentler (people tend to go on the defense when they feel like they’re being scolded, so it could have the opposite effect than intended), I completely agree with the sentiment. We’re spending WAY too much time with our eyes glued to a tiny screen, and we’re missing out on SO much because of it.
What are you missing while you’re staring at your phone?
Listen, I’m not judging anyone here. I think that ever since smartphones became a thing, we’ve all been guilty of overusing them at one point or another. It’s getting to the point, though, that we as a society spend more time looking at our phones than we do looking at each other or the world around us, and that’s a problem.
Think about life before we carried around tiny computers in our pockets. Remember how we used to talk to each other while we waited for our kids outside the school? We’d strike up a conversation with other parents and make new connections.
Sometimes those connections lasted just moments. Sometimes, though, we made new lifelong friends.
You’re missing out on moments that you can never get back
We’re not just missing out on the opportunity to connect with new people though. We’re also missing out on making real connections with the people who are already in our lives. Our children, for example. Kids grow up SO fast, and every single moment is unique and precious.
Every single moment is also a “once in a lifetime” event. There will never be another kindergarten play, second-grade recital, middle school graduation. They will never take their first step again. Their first smile. The first time they say, “I love you.” Even your kids’ laughter will never sound the same as it does today.
It’s not just your kids’ lives that you’re missing out on, either. As I’ve said so many times, life is made up of a million little moments, and every single one only comes once in a lifetime. Even things that we do all of the time will never be done in exactly the same way.
You can walk the same path each morning and never see the same flowers in the same light, or hear the same birds singing the same tune twice. The planets will never again align the same way, the sun will never again shine through the leaves in the same pattern, the stars will never again twinkle the same twinkle.
Get off your phone and just be present
By staring at your phone day in and out, you’re missing out on moments that you can never, ever, ever get back. I can almost guarantee that you’ll regret it one day. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not in a year, but one day you’ll look back and think, “I wish I paid more attention.”
I’m not saying you have to completely give it up. That’s a pretty unreasonable demand, and pretty hypocritical since I’m not about to give up mine! Smartphones should help make our lives easier, not take them over.
They should help us stay connected, not avoid making connections. Help us capture memorable moments, not miss out on them. Oh, and when you do hop on your phone to take pictures, please at least be IN the photo!
If yours closes you off to the world around you and makes you miss all the beauty that surrounds you, then you’re using it wrong. Worse, you will regret it one day. So please, get off your phone and just be present.
Mary says
I wish we could post this to all mom’s and Dads
Jeanette Shutay says
That’s because mothers have to be mothers and fathers. Women today have to work full-time jobs and take care of the majority of the household and child care responsibilities. Would you still write this post if the quote was “Daddy, daddy, daddy…”? Give mother’s a break!
Starry Girl says
Of course it applies to any parent. We can all get off the phone for those important minutes.
CARLA J MCKINNEY says
I recently took my 4 grandchildren to Disneyland. I was appalled at how many parents were staring at their cellphones while their children were pleading for their attention. It doesn’t stop with just the parents. I saw a group of teen girls, sitting together in a circle, but each staring at their own screens. In the 30 minutes I sat near them, not once did they share a glance or a word. We carried cellphones, in order to keep in touch when we separated to go on different rides (wide age difference in the kids). I had agreed that they could play with their phones if we were waiting in a really long line., They didn’t even do that. We were there to reconnect, after a long isolation period due to Covid. Why anyone would want to miss this precious time together is beyond me.
Jason says
This article is pretty elitist. Many parents now are tethered to their phones for work. I know I have been working for design firms. Daycare pickup is during prime call time as clients are getting off of work and have a days worth of information to transmit. Maybe cut these parents some slack as they try to tie up loose ends and finish their work day so the can be more present when they get home.
Remember that what you see is never the whole story and be kind to parents. Sometimes they are stretched thin and are doing their damn best. This type of article is all about shame and is, itself, shameful.
Chelsea says
My children get out of school at 2pm…. In the MIDDLE of the workday. I go on every field trip, I volunteer teach 2 after school classes every week (with my children in them). I take them to and fro to school every day. I take them to and from to every gymnastics, martial arts and soccer practice and I am present at every game, belt test and meet. I do homework with them every day, I read with them everyday. I make dinner everyday. I kiss them goodnight and tuck them in everyday. I volunteer at everyone of their events. I do many varied art projects with them and I TALK to them. I work full time and if I have to pick up a work call in the middle of the work day so I can put food on the table, I am going to do. The phone goes away at 5pm and weekends. This article is absolute crap.
Jami Leigh says
Just what we need, someone else telling us what to do, how to do it, and that we are in the wrong. How about MIND YOUR BUSINESS. If the world would worry about their own affairs and not what everyone else is doing, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Period.
Jackie says
I totally agree with everything that is in this post.
Audrey Baker says
Mobile phones are a curse. Initially I thought they were used to call people in an emergency.
Now they have taken over the world. I wonder if young people ever think how we managed without them. Don’t think so, they never stop looking at their phones to THINK about anything. I just HATE people walking along the street looking at their phone and NOT looking where they are going. It happens all the time. Shame on them. What the HELL do they find so interesting ? I can’t imagine. Perhaps would could send them all to another planet, I think that’s where they are anyway !
Kelly says
Hey, hiiiii! 🙋
This post and a lot of these comments are not passing the vibe check y’all.
So here’s some food for thought:
For working (& often single) parents, that small window of time while we’re in our car waiting to pickup our kids is likely the ONLY time during the day where we are alone and it’s quiet enough to make an important phone call that needs to be done during business hours (such as making doctor’s, dentist, or therapy appointments). When we get up in the morning we’re getting ourselves ready for work, while getting the kids ready for school( did you brush your teeth, did you brush your hair, where’s your backpack, where’s your shoes, here’s your clean clothes for the day, Etc.) When we go to work at our job that allows us to provide shelter, food, & clothing to our children, we are expected to be focused on our work and cannot use company time for personal matters. Then after work we go to pick up our kids from school, often having to go straight from the school to running errands like grocery shopping, or carting our kids off to extracurricular activities. Once we get home we immediately switch gears to multitask mode again to help our kids with their homework, clean up our house, do the dishes or the laundry, cook dinner, bathe kiddos, and then finally we get everybody ready for bed so that we can all get some rest before we have to do it all again tomorrow BY OURSELVES.
So, let’s all try digging really deep for some empathy, kindness, and maybe even a little solidarity before we allow ourselves to have the audacity to take a 3 minute snapshot, without any context, of a parent’s life and proceed to judge & shame them for what we *think* we see.
MIND YOUR OWN MOTHERHOOD PEOPLE!