Reality bites – but technical freedom beckons

I miss my kids. I never thought I’d be saying this so soon after this morning’s meltdown, a whooping sob attributable to the fact that I’ve banished the iPad and its incumbent escapism, Minecraft, due to Jonah repeatedly ignoring us. The fact is, it’s been taking over and a combination of tiredness, laziness and ease has allowed it. It’s time to cut the cord.

It’s tough on the childminders, the two interchangeable 20 year olds I collectively call Helorgi – partly for their leggy befringed, slightly wanton good looks and relaxed easy breezy personalities, partly because Jonah insists on referring to them both by the wrong name. But as another holiday slips by, and I outsource their childhood in a blur of technology where simple pleasures are treated as tourist exhibits to be photographed and placed in the glass cabinet of social media as proof I’m a good parent, I worry that I’m running out of time to actually be one.

It’s not been helped that as part of my job, I’m writing about place to go around London, if only I had the time to go there. The French and Swedish have the right idea. Capping the working day at six, or after six hours, for the Swedes, is only the tip of the iceberg to stem the incipient drip drip of work into real life that is part and parcel of life in the UK . Although I’d take three long days over five short ones. I could do my job in half the time if I didn’t have to negotiate the commute every day, a hair raising 10 mile cycle through central London’s wilder traffic flows; if I didn’t have to repeat the daily hurdles of showering, becoming presentable, ensuring my children are fed, watered, slept, breakfasted and bedtime storied. But all that necessary ephemera notwithstanding, much of what I do could be condensed, dehydrated and chopped without anyone really noticing the difference. My job itself, compared to the very visceral occupation of raising children, with all its long term consequences, seems frivolous. I know I’d be more productive if only I had whole days to myself for wandering and taking stock. I want to give my kids a chance to do this while they still have the chance.

The taller half of Helorgi mentioned today, after the iPad debacle, that she’d not had a TV as a child, and in this dark eyed, quietly spoken, calm and yet determined young women, who sings in a successful band in her spare time and doesn’t seem to mind hanging out with small children the rest of it, it shows. Jonah’s obsession with consoles has been fuelled by well meaning relatives, and my own need to ‘get things done’ – perhaps a result of my own target-driven upbringing. But he has become increasingly ansty as he builds his own perfect world away from the frustrations he suffers in the real one: teeth grinding, monosyllabic, prone to hissy fits. I blame myself.

But then it’s always been easier to be a good parent  to my easy going daughter. She has always been so happy just to be.  She can take or leave most activities, is easily suggestible to go anywhere or try anything. The only time she stands her ground is over stuff that ends up making me look better – she bears no truck with dolls, or dresses, fairy wings or puffball tutus, so my tendency to indulge my latent girlishness is wasted, making me look like a gender neutral hero when she goes out again in dungarees, wielding her brother’s tool kit.

With Jonah, doing what he wants mean giving him access to technology, which he quickly masters, out experting the experts. I’ve indulged it, because there’s a potential career, not least his own need to find solace away from society, but in living in an alternate reality, he is also missing out on his chance to create happy memories of this one.

I want to slow down, appreciate the days, take time off –  I want, if truth be told, to live in a yurt, like this mum I follow on wordpress, but perhaps that’s pushing it for a London gal like me. In any case, I have four days off from tomorrow. We’re going to Butlin’s. It’s not exactly getting away from it all, but who cares? We’re going with Kate and Lola, with Linda and Freddie, so what it loses in peace, it’ll make up for in laughs  – and squabbles. I just hope they all understand it that I won’t be bringing a console of any kind.

How funny that’s it’s called a console after all. It does seem as though it consoles Jonah for the woes of actually living, but like removing a dummy or any kind of comforter, it just seems also to come with a back rod of distress when it is removed. But like a dummy, the earlier the better to get rid of it, for helping them to move on to managing life without.