iParenting

“It’s amazing how we brought up our children without the help of technology,” I said to my wife, looking up from the newspaper. I often introduced deep, philosophical topics like this over our morning cup of coffee.

“You mean disposable diapers?” she asked.

“No, but good point! We should discuss that another time. But I was wondering how we brought up two children without even one iPad?”

“Jordy Kaufman of Swinburne University, Melbourne,” I continued, reading from the newspaper, “claims that using an iPad is intuitive to babies and it fosters creativity and intelligence. According to Ofcom's report, 51% of UK households own a tablet and where children are in those households, they tend to be users too. And in the US, as many children have their own iPads as did adults two years ago! All our kids had was the rattle.”

My wife nodded sagely.

A few days after this intellectual exchange, our friends Mithun and Amrita came home for dinner with their six-year old twin boys and infant girl of eight months. Like a good host, I moved to help them dismantle the baby’s pram. That’s when I noticed it had an iPad mounted two feet above the baby’s face.

“Wow! That’s neat,” I said, reaching out to pluck it out of its mount.

“No! Don’t!” screamed Mithun, but too late. I had already removed the device. Immediately the baby began howling and thrashing about in the pram, making it impossible for me to clip the iPad back.

“Leave it to us!” said Mithun.

Amrita lifted the baby out of the pram. “There, there,” she cooed, sitting down with the baby on the sofa. “Naughty uncle will return your iPad. Won’t he?” She looked at me pointedly.

Taking the hint, I quickly gave her the iPad. She held it in front of her, so the baby could watch the screen, where Winnie the Pooh was going cycling with his friends. The baby stopped crying immediately and watched the screen with a contented look in her eyes.

“Okay Mithun, let’s do this together,” said Amrita.

In front of our eyes, they executed a beautiful manoeuvre that reminded me of two Cirque du Soleil acrobats I had once watched. Mithun bent over and held the iPad. Then, as he straightened up and stepped back, his wife rose from her seat, such that Winnie and friends were always at the same distance from the baby’s face. Mithun walked backwards while Amrita walked forwards with baby extended in arms. As one unit they moved towards the pram, the baby watching the screen and gurgling with joy the whole way. The exercise got trickier when they reached the pram but they managed it with finesse. In two movements synchronised as one, Amrita slid the child into her lying position and Mithun clipped it iPad into place. The baby did not miss Winnie for one second.

I clapped. “Wow! That was neat!”

“Well, you’re not the first person to unwittingly remove the iPad from the pram,” said Amrita. “So we’ve had some practice. But please, please don’t do that again.”

“I won’t,” I promised.

The baby was happily immersed in the screen. But the twin boys seated politely on the sofa were looking bored.  Noticing this, my wife addressed them cheerfully.

“Hi boys! Shall I get you a jigsaw puzzle to play with?”

“No!” said Ankush, the twin who was elder by five minutes. “We want to play football!”

“Oh, you’d like to go outside?” I said. “That’s great. The condo has a nice basketball court where you can…”

“Don’t be silly, Paddy,” said Mithun. “They don’t want to go outside. They want to play football here and I’m going to say yes!” As my wife looked at me in panic, Amrita opened her large bag, which I had assumed was filled with baby stuff like spare diapers and milk, took out two iPad minis and handed them over to the boys, who grabbed them eagerly.

“They’re addicted to the iPad version of the FIFA football game,” explained Mithun. “Can you please give them your wireless password?”

Soon the two boys were seated side-by-side on the sofa, heads down, faces intently watching their respective screens and fingers moving feverishly on it.

“They can sit like that for hours,” said Amrita. “But,” she added virtuously, “we don’t allow them more than two hours at a time and not more that thrice a day. Except when we’re visiting someone like today, of course.” I took that to mean this was session number 4 for today.

While the four of us adults ate dinner, the baby watched Winnie and the boys battled it out on FIFA. Then the boys (reluctantly) took a break while my wife served them food.

I thought this was the right time to impart some sound advice to Mithun and Amrita.

“You know, it’s not good for kids to spend so much time…”

I stopped because I was addressing the top of their heads: they were both bent down over their phones, engrossed in the screen. I felt my advice would perhaps be wasted.