Predictable

I ran across a piece in the NYTimes about iPhone applications that are geared towards kids of various ages, for purposes of education or entertainment. The first line line of the article posed the question "Say you were faced with a 3-year-old child on the verge of full meltdown — which iPhone apps would distract and delight him enough to avoid mayhem?"

Predictably, when I skimmed the comments to see what apps people had found besides the ones mentioned in the article, I found the following comment:

Pathetic. Parents are so helpless in how to handle their kids that they have to resort to this?
Somehow we’ve managed to raise kids for thousands of years without iPhone applications. Sometimes we’ve even done the strange thing called “interacting” with them.Oh, and occasionally saying “no” to tantrum throwing 3 year olds and leaving whatever place they’re throwing the tantrum in!— Library Lady

I wonder, has Library Lady ever been on a long plane flight with a toddler? This sounds to me like exactly the kind of comment made by people who don't have kids of their own, but are nonetheless experts on parenting. Or conversely, someone who raised their own kids long ago... long enough to forget their own troubles and shortcomings, and bemoan those of the newer generation of parents. Someone who, when faced with their own tantrum-throwing 3 year old all those years ago, would probably have killed for a device that could magically bring peace and quiet.

Personally, I plan to use my iPhone with Annika - to entertain, amuse, soothe, stimulate, teach, and whatever else I find it can do. I'm not the least bit worried that if I do so, I'll be depriving her of human interaction or somehow severing her from the "real world." The more puzzling question for me, is at what point it might be reasonable to get a kid their own iPhone. Not anytime soon, certainly. She'll have her own camera long before she has her own phone!