The Irony of Ignoring my Child to Prep for a Screen Fast

It’s somewhat last-minute, but it’s 9:30 on Thursday night, and I’ve just tonight decided to do a screen fast for Earth Day tomorrow.

Zoie on TouchstoneZ posted on her Facebook page about the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood’s “Screen-Free Week” this week. I liked the idea and had it percolating in my noggin for the past several days, but frankly, the thought of going without e-mail and Facebook and blog stats for an entire 24-hour period is a little scary to me. The thought of going an entire week puts me on the verge of hyperventilating. That fear in itself is probably a good reason to do the fast, now that I think about it.

But aside from enjoying scaring myself, I like the idea of seeing what happens if I stop checking the computer every five minutes and actually hang out with my kids undistracted for a day.

Then I attended a yoga class tonight. The focus was on the third chakra (the midsection/belly area. They always say it’s at the solar plexus, but I’m really not at all certain where exactly the solar plexus is. Sometimes I think I must have paid no attention at all during Yoga Teacher Training). At the end of class, the teacher made the comment that now that we’ve balanced the third chakra, an electronics fast for Earth Day might be a great way to follow up our practice.

I didn’t quite follow her logic (perhaps I need to do some study review about my chakras), but it was the push I needed to commit to using no screens on Friday.

So now I’m frantically trying to schedule my posts for the next two days before I got to bed tonight so I don’t have to turn on the computer and blog during my screen fast. (I write my posts the day before to post after midnight. It’s a tiny thing, but it makes me feel like I’m ahead of the game.)

And because I’m not content with just one inconvenient task at a time, I’ve decided to expand beyond the screen fast and make it a car-free day, as well. So not only am I blogging, but I’m also looking up bus routes and safer bike routes to do my errands Friday.

My husband even suggested that we hang out and have family time by candlelight tomorrow evening (although ideally the kids are in bed before we need a lot of artificial light, they both seem to enjoy open flames). This was after he tried to talk me out of my screen fast and car-free day because he felt guilty about being on the computer with his job search all day in the hopes that he’ll be flying thousands of miles in the next several weeks for on-site interviews. Once I explained that the screen-free day was for avoiding the use of screens for entertainment, but that using screens for work was OK, and that I thought air travel for the purpose of getting a job was a totally fine reason to use fossil fuels, he was more supportive of my plan.

I mentioned my plan to my daughter, and she was confused. Some of her questions:

• “What’s electricity?” (I was surprised at how difficult this one was to answer, but being that the other big question of the day was, “Do you think there are after lifes?” this question was easy in comparison)
• “How does not using electricity help the polar bears?” (I was very impressed that she’d made this connection. I guess this is what happens when a kid starts reading everything she gets her hands on.)
• “What’s one bad thing about electricity?” (My answer to this began with, “Electricity itself isn’t bad…” and then led inevitably to the next question:
• “What’s coal?”
• “Can you measure me so I can record my height?”
• “How tall do you think my brother is?”
• “How long is 21.75 inches?”

Questions I asked in return included, “Honey, could you please wait until I’m done getting my thoughts down and then we can talk about this more?” and “Why didn’t Daddy put you to bed before I got home from yoga?”

So, Friday I’ll not be checking Facebook or Twitter or e-mail or blog stats, but hopefully I’ll be a little more attentive to my daughter and her questions.

I’ll plan to do a recap of my screen-free experiences when I blog on Saturday for Sunday. And I’ll also tell you about the exciting development around my “Make Three Friends” resolution! (How’s that for a cliffhanger ending?)