About a month ago, my students were wrapping up Ray Bradbury\u2019s classic dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451<\/em>. To stir up trouble, I gave out this article, \u201cIs Google Making Us Stupid?\u201d<\/a> by Nicholas Carr from The Atlantic<\/em>. It\u2019s all about how our attention spans are shortening, at first by imperceptible, and now very perceptible degrees with the prominence of search engines and Facebook\/Instagram\/Twitter, etc. It\u2019s a cool article that opens and closes with Hal, the computer from \u201c2001 Space Odyssey,\u201d so how can you go wrong? It\u2019s also about ten pages long. You should have seen them struggle to get through the end\u2026psychological experiment at its finest.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

I mostly used the article as a circus trick to get them to think about how much they use technology and how little they read real books. But it got me thinking about my own life. I don\u2019t teach full time right now. A four-year-old who needs all the therapies in the world plus toddler twins are greater than, not equal to, a teacher\u2019s paycheck. So I find myself having conversations as follows:<\/p>\n

\u201cCharlie to you want to watch trains?\u201d Shakes head \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBuses?\u201d Shakes head.<\/p>\n

\u201cWiggles?\u201d Shakes head.<\/p>\n

\u201cBaby Signing Time?\u201d A verbal \u201cuh-huh.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Or if I\u2019m talking to the twins\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cCora, why did you take off Jonas\u2019 clothes?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJonas, where is your diaper and why did you put that ball down the air vent?\u201d<\/p>\n

Both questions illicit, \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d before they run off, naked and crazy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Last week I received this picture from Jonas\u2019 teacher at school:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Why? My brain cannot compute.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I find myself picking food out of their hair like an ape rather than giving them a bath and singing \u201cElmo\u2019s World\u201d when no one else is in the car. My books are now stepping stools for tiny people. I am not my former self.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the thing. My kids are doing something for me that books cannot, at least not in real life. They\u2019re growing my heart like the Grinch. The conversations are weirder, but they are keeping me in the present, something books do not. Life is messier, figuratively and literally (Jonas just wiped his nose on my knee), but I\u2019m in it. That\u2019s the thing about kids, they don\u2019t let you check out. Even when all you want to do is read a good book or take a long shower, they are there to remind you that you are not mistress of your domain and that\u2019s okay. And your brain will come back to you when you need it. It\u2019s just in sleep mode.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About a month ago, my students were wrapping up Ray Bradbury\u2019s classic dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451. To stir up trouble, I gave out this article, \u201cIs Google Making Us Stupid?\u201d by Nicholas Carr from The Atlantic. It\u2019s all about how our attention spans are shortening, at first by imperceptible, and now very perceptible degrees with the prominence of search engines and Facebook\/Instagram\/Twitter, etc. It\u2019s a cool article that opens and closes with Hal, the computer …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/IMG_1892-1-e1481560622633.jpg?fit=368%2C436&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ca5p-2J","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions\/176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}