Why my cell-phone is going away for a while

My phone and I are taking a break. When and will we get back together? That's still TBD.

Back to The Landline Days

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

It turns out that getting ready be cell phone-free for the rest of the summer required nearly an entire day of being on my phone. There were many friends and family, quite a few more than I realized, who needed to be informed of my phone-departure.

I assured them that they can still reach me by calling my home phone, sending a note in the mail, or simply dropping by!

I didn’t want my texts to sound ultra-spiritual, deeply serious, or like “I don’t need friends.” So here’s what I came up with, and I texted some version of this to my people.

“My cell phone is taking a long summer siesta, starting tomorrow. If you need to reach me, please call my Home Phone #_____. I won’t be receiving texts. Feel free to send a note in the mail to _________. Or stop by my house! I’m always home, except for when I’m not.”

This resulted in brief texts to friends who I haven’t talked to in months, a pen-pal arrangement between my kids and a friend’s kids who moved away a few years ago, and an overall response of “That’s awesome! Enjoy the break!”

What I soon realized was that in, was that by telling everyone, I made it very hard to back out or postpone this plan for some later date. This was happening. I have yet to completely figure out the “car phone” situation but I’ll let you know what I end up doing. It wouldn’t be the wisest idea to drive my babies around rural Iowa without a way to contact someone in an emergency.

Why Am I Doing This?

I want my kids to have a regular old-fashioned 90’s summer.

I’ve known that for some time. But what I didn’t realize was that I want to have an old-fashioned 90’s summer. With less TV.

I feel like I watched a lot of TV back in the day. It was anything from SpongeBob to Jeopardy; if it was on the screen, my face was glued to it. Whatever happened to the whole, “Get back from the TV, it’s bad for your eyes!” I heard a lot of that phrase growing up, but maybe parents had to say so that we would stop blocking the screen from everyone else.

Eventually though, the TV show would end, we’d get bored of reruns, and it was time to venture outside (or get sent outside by parents). My siblings and I had a creek we would walk to. Correction, a creek they would walk to.

It was a long time before I was old enough to go along, so up until that point they would spell out loud to each other, “Hey, let’s walk to The C-R-E-E-K,” as if I didn’t know what they were talking about. They spelled everything out loud that they didn’t want others to know about, and nobody, not even the dog, was fooled.

What was so special about The Creek? Maybe it was that it felt like our own secret world, or that we could step out on big rocks, trying not to soak our shoes or slip into the fast-moving water. We’d hunt for fossils and smooth rocks. We were always back by suppertime.

If we weren’t going to The Creek, there was Holiday a bike ride away. It was the best gas station around, because it was the closest one that we could bike to. I’d bring my pocket change and buy a handful of Bazooka Bubble Gum and Tootsie-Frooties.

---

We live in the country, and I grew up in a suburb and then a small town— of course my kids’ childhood will be different in some ways. But some things…some things remain remarkably the same and in a world so rapidly changing I find comfort in this.

For example, my “middle boys” played with toads today.

On days when there’s only one toad, they have to fight over the poor thing, but today we were all fortunate enough to have two toads around and they enjoyed these little companions for hours. There’s nothing original about this. Boys have been playing with toads for as long as there have been boys and toads.

In this same afternoon, my sweet 3-year-old daughter decided to give herself a haircut. I was nursing the baby outside, we were all hanging around each other for a while, but when I went in to get the kids ready to go out, there she was with scissors in hand, and pretty blonde curls on the floor.

I’m still trying to decide if I need to cut her hair short, or if I can somehow remedy the situation with enough ponytails and bobby pins while I wait for it to grow.

If you have free-range, “90’s summer kids,” someone is bound to end up cutting their hair behind your back, and boys might carry around toads in their plastic toolbox (along with their collections of rocks and screws).

My kids aren’t little angels by any means. They’re annoying at times. Messy. Rude. Downright weird. But they have a knack for creativity. They laugh at silly things. They get excited about birdwatching. My 3-year-old will look up at the sky in the middle of swim lessons and say, “Look! Birds of prey!”

When was the last time you noticed the world like that?

I’m not saying that I want to repeat childhood, but sometimes I think that if Little Me had looked into the future and saw me spending every minute of downtime staring at a small shiny screen, she would be disappointed.

That’s who I’m going to be? Boring.

So, when I decided to put my cell phone away for the rest of summer (or longer?) it wasn’t to get rid of something, but to gain something back. When I look at the way my kids play, I see this very ordinary childhood, or at least what used to be ordinary. They don’t yet have to deal with the burden of always-on-technology and constant internet use. I have to admit, I’m a little jealous.

At one point I thought that a smartphone was incredibly helpful as a stay-at-home-mom. I’d never have to feel alone, a million recipes are a quick search away, my camera is at-the-ready, and everything I need is right there in my pocket. What better tool for a mom whose hands are often full? But somewhere along the way, my phone got increasingly more interesting, and harder to put down. It became less of a tool and more of a coping mechanism.

My kids’ requests were always competing with some podcast or YouTube video. Another group text comes in. Another magical moment happens, and I have to grab the phone to snap a photo, which isn’t enough by itself because I’ve got to send the photo to at least their grandma, and maybe their aunts.

What happens when that useful but also distracting device gets put away for a time? That’s what I want to find out. I know it won’t miss me, sitting there in the drawer. Will I miss it? Will life be terribly difficult and boring without it?

Or will I start to notice the hawks in the sky?

Will I read and write in spare moments instead of scroll?

Perhaps I’ll enjoy a bit of what summer felt like 20 or 30 years ago. I know I’ll still be distracted, because that’s just me. But I hope it’s the real life in front of me kind of distraction.

If you need me, I’ll be in the backyard-- sipping iced tea with a good book or running through the sprinkler. Who knows… if I get bored enough, maybe I can find a creek to sneak away to.

Am I the only one feeling this nostalgia lately? What are your thoughts about phone breaks?

I’d love to hear any ideas or thoughts in the comments!