THE ROAD TRIP TO HELL
is published with odd
intentions.
In the last ten years or so, as more and more
parents have become more and more self-absorbed and self-pitying, and as more
and more media outlets have chosen not just to forgive but even to fuel those
unfortunate conditions, a new and supremely annoying subgenre of the
first-person perspective piece -- call it the
Woe is
Mom, or the
We Poor
Parents, or the
My 8-Year-Old Daughter Dresses Like
Britney Spears and I Can't Do a Thing About It
Essay -- has arisen from the muck of
cluelessness and the mire of permissiveness to lumber like some literary
Godzilla, plodding and graceless, across the burning landscapes of good writing
and respectable publications. It's inevitable, of course, that these hideous
creatures and their screeching laments over the intractability of their children
and/or the nefarious influence of technology and popular culture should flourish
on web logs; when you have no editor but your ego and no arbiter of sense or
reason -- or of actually, you know, having a defensible point -- but your own
sniveling self, these pieces, served as they are with so much whine and cheese,
are bound to proliferate online. But they have proliferated also in newspapers
and magazines that should know better, in publications with thinkers and writers
and editors who should do better than to let these essays -- which, to any savvy
or rational reader, lament nothing more or less than the writer's own lack of
perspective -- cloud their own better judgments and clog their own better
pages.
The most regular and awful offender, the downtown Tokyo for these great, big, fire-breathing phonies, is Newsweek's "My Turn" column, a regular feature that used to showcase thoughtful and original commentaries but that, sometime between accepting (and then never running) my media violence essay and accepting (and inexplicably running) that My 8-Year-Old Daughter Dresses Like Britney essay -- no, really; I wasn't making that up -- became a sort of clearinghouse for parents so busy writing about how the world conspires against them that they haven't had time to notice how often, and how foolishly, they conspire against themselves.
The most regular and awful of the recent My Turn offenders, Lisa Segelman's wretched ode to The Family Road Trip in a Digital Age, arrived in my mailbox a few weeks ago, right after I'd return from a family road trip of my own. I would, of course, have dismissed and detested the piece at any time of the year, but the perfect timing of it all made me all the more crazed and incredulous. I first referred to it here over two weeks ago, and I've been meaning to get to it ever since. Last night, I read it again. And I realized, once I was certain that my head would not actually explode, that the time had come to slice it up into some tasty TWM morsels and then share it with you.
We'll pick it up here in the third paragraph, after Ms. Segelman announces that her family of five has decided to (bad sign #1) motor south from New Jersey to Florida, recalls (bad sign #2) a golden-aged, salami-sandwiched road trip with her own parents, and admits that she thought (bad sign #3) this trip would be a chance to relive a simpler time. Once you've seen those signs, and especially once she refers to this current trip down memory highway, you know it's only a matter of seconds, or maybe even syllables, before the whole old/new, good/bad, simple/complex, innocence/expedience dichotomy rears its phony head and tries to convince us that we're all on the family road trip to some near-future hell. Less than one sentence later, Ms. Segelman does not disappoint:
...those 1,200 miles aren't what they used to be.
Perhaps because parents -- with some notable exceptions, of course -- aren't what they used to be.
Companionship and shared experience have been replaced by individual desires and personal technology.
Maybe in your car and your house, honey. But not in mine. And not in plenty of other people's. Because individual desires have always existed. (Yes, they even predate iPods and cell phones! Can you imagine?) And because no matter how many pieces of personal technology you have in your car or your house or your life -- and I'd be hard-pressed to imagine a family with more pieces of personal technology per capita than mine -- they only replace companionship and shared experience if they're allowed to. You know, by parents too cowed or compliant or indulgent to stop them.
Exhibit A:
I knew I'd have to combine the old with the new.
Well, you could have. And you probably should have. But you didn't have to. You are one of the parents, right? I mean, you are still in charge, aren't you? Aren't you?
Exhibit B:
I made speeches about library books, but also borrowed a two-screen DVD player.
I could rest my case right here. And maybe I should. But I won't.
She makes a speech about library books -- which, presumably, none of her children heard, because they were too busy listening to their iPods and blabbing on their cell phones -- but then borrows a DVD player for the minivan. The use of which she will not control. And will eventually lament.
Anyone see a problem here? An irony? A great, big, you-made-your-own-bed-and-now-you-gotta-lie-in-it-but-you-still-wanna-lay-the-blame-somewhere-else moment? A woman who wants her kids to read on a road trip supplies a DVD player and a pair of video screens for the back seats of her car. A woman who laments that her children will tune-in to technology and tune-out to her conversation supplies those kids with the biggest media source they'll have on the trip. She may as well have lamented her children's drug habit, then bought them each a crack pipe.
Anyone else think Ms. Segelman just destroyed any tiny scrap of credibility she may have been able to claim? If not, just wait...
What I didn't realize was just how much technology was packed already.
After all, how could a parent have any idea about, much less set any restrictions upon, the amount of technology her children are packing for vacation? It's not as if she has any interest or authority in the matter.
Reality check: for our recent family road trip, we knew every single thing, from technology to clothes to books to beach toys, that our boys had packed. Because we oversaw their choices. We supervised their packing. We approved -- or, on occasion, disallowed -- their choices. You know, because we thought it was our responsibility as parents. Funny, isn't it? And almost as quaint, it seems, as those golden-hued, salami-sandwiched road trips of yore.
But you know what was even funnier? That neither of our boys, even as they occasionally lobbied for a different decision, resented or rebelled against that level of parental involvement. Because they're used to it. Because they expect it. And, most importantly of all, because they respect it.
Aside from the DVD player, we had two computers, three MP3 players and three cell phones, which meant we connected to a lot more than the scenery.
Ms. Segelman would no doubt be shocked to learn that none of those gadgets is capable of turning itself on. Or that none of them is (yet) capable of overriding parental authority and limitations. Assuming, of course, those limitations are properly placed. And enforced.
On our road trip, we brought a laptop, a cell phone, two iPods, and two handheld video game systems. At various and appropriate times throughout the vacation, every one of them was put to use. But in the car, even as we logged close to 1,000 miles on the trip, only one of those things was ever put to use: my iPod. Which, plugged into the 4Runner's stereo system and set to shuffle, was the soundtrack for every single mile. That we all listened to. And grooved to. And sang to. Together.
Every once in a while, on a particularly boring and soulless stretch of highway -- think PA Turnpike from Blue Mountain to Carlisle, or NJ 55 from Camden to Millvile -- we let the boys pull out a couple of books -- you know, those humble alternatives to borrowed DVD players -- and read for a while. But for the rest of the trip, we connected to the scenery. And to the conversation. And so to each other. And yet, until I read Ms. Segelman's awful lament, I never once considered us exceptional.
I still don't.
Gone are the days of marveling at a new bridge or cheering as governors welcome us to their states via big border signs.
Bullshit.
Because somehow, against all odds, we managed to marvel at a new bridge (a wonderful new span over the Susquehanna River in central PA) and cheer our welcome to new states (while the communal iPod, bless it's little artificial intelligence, cued up Bruce Springsteen for our arrival in New Jersey). We also marveled at new roads and buildings and ballparks. At cows and corn fields and windmills. At shanties and tour buses and lovely little produce stands set up on the side of the road. We played The License Plate Game. We played Alphabet Travel and Road Trip Scavenger Hunt. We played Put the iPods and Game Boys Away While You Watch the Wonderful World Go By.
I doubt Newsweek would publish an essay about any of that. But we did it all. And we don't have a single lament to show for it.
Instead we had daily "tech checks" to make sure everything was charged.
Translation: We made sure everyone had fresh crack for their pipes.
There were so many cords traversing the minivan, it looked like a fully equipped kidney-dialysis unit.
I'll admit: this one sparks my curiosity.
What the hell were all those cords doing? They couldn't possibly be charging everything at once. And I doubt they were running an outlet strip out of the minivan's cigarette lighter. So to what was everyone plugged in? And if everyone was plugged in, and if there were cords all over the minivan, why the hell did they need those daily "tech checks" to make sure everything was charged?
We even added GPS to my son's cell phone (even though our position was I-95 from start to finish).
That's right, kids: a woman who laments the role of technology in her family's life allows her son to have a cell phone he surely does not need, allows him to use it in the car on the road trip where it surely does not belong, and even adds one more layer of technological hoo-ha for assistance they do not need -- surely even someone as slow on the uptake as Ms. Segelman should be able to follow one road all the way to Florida -- and then bemoans (for six sentences!) that she did it, as if the hands of the GPS Gods themselves had descended from the satellite-filled heavens and forced her, against her will and her howls of parental protest, to do so.
Is it possible this woman has been brainwashed by her children? By her husband? By Al-Qaeda? Because I can't begin to imagine another scenario in which she could have this little self-awareness. Or this little sense of irony.
That meant we had the voices of "Kelly" and "Robert" with us at every turn. If we tired of Kelly's too-seductive voice telling us to "prepare to turn left," Robert would encourage us to "prepare to turn right."
You know, because we had to keep them turned on. We had no choice. They were like HAL in 2001; they just took over, and we couldn't do a damned thing about it.
Oh, the humanity!
Although I brought along the fat AAA Tour Books,...
Once again, I remind you: they were taking 95 the whole fucking way.
Perhaps those books were like a safety net, a back-up plan in case Kelly or Robert went really crazy and wouldn't let them back on the interstate, or maybe tried to destroy them like SkyNet in the Terminator movies. I mean, I doubt she could have used the books to navigate, but she could have used them to attack, and perhaps eventually to disable, her son's cell phone.
I used them only to prop up the computer on my lap.
Anyone out there think she never turned it on? Anyone really think she, Ms. Technology-Is-Destroying-My-Family, never turned it on? (Yeah, I know this family's technology seems to be able to turn itself on, but bear with me, just for the sake of argument.) Or do you think she just rode all the way to Florida with it and all those fat tour books on her lap?
We didn't need them because the GPS was able to pinpoint nearby franchise restaurants, guiding us into the same Mexican chain for the same quesadilla we'd eaten three states ago.
And here, finally, we have proof that Kelly and/or Robert took over: they would, in their typically soulless and nefarious post-modern way, only direct this poor family to franchise restaurants. They rendered the car unable to arrive, and its passengers unable to eat, at anything other than the franchises that Ms. Segelman seems -- is it a cry for help? is she hoping the GPS voices won't read her essay? -- to lament. At least a little.
Not enough to prevent her family from eating there again, mind you. But enough to include it in the essay.
When I was the designated driver, my headphone-wearing husband and daughter would burst into laughter during choice moments of their movie, while my ear-budded son would randomly sing out, "Ain't no mountain high enough..."
Wouldn't you love to know, just out of morbid curiosity, what movie they were watching? (RV? National Lampoon's Vacation? 1984?) There is some consolation, I suppose, in the thought that her son at least has good taste in songs. (Though I have a sinking feeling he was listening either to the Meisha Moore or the Sanjaya Malakar version.)
"Anyone want a cookie?" I would ask. No answer.
Every time I asked, Anyone want a Starburst? or Anyone want a Life Saver?, I always got an answer.
"Hey, look! There's a real cotton field, right off the highway!" No response.
When I said, Hey, look, there's Boathouse Row! or Hey, look at that beautiful pond, I always got a response.
"Wanna stop in Georgia for pecan logs?" Silence.
And when I said, Wanna stop at Sideling Hill for a drink and a bathroom break?, I heard three resounding Yeses.
A traffic jam caused by an overturned truck filled with uranium got most of the family to look up. I guess it takes a nuclear threat to get a preteen's attention.
It only took a word or a phrase or a point to get my teen's attention. And my seven-year-old's attention. They must like me better than Ms. Segelman's kids like her. Or maybe I'm just a better parent. Or maybe Wendy and I just know how to prevent our kids and our technology from getting out of our control.
Which does, of course, prevent us from writing such simpering My Turn essays. Even if it does compel me to write about them.
For much of the vacation drive time, I was in my own virtual reality.
Judging by your writing, this was not much of a change.
I had no one to talk to, no one to share whatever meager experiences I-95 had to offer. I tuned in to some scratchy country-music stations and empathized with their loneliness. I yearned for the old days in my mama's Buick station wagon, rolling around the back hills of suburbia.
Without ever realizing that, were you to exert a little parental authority or influence, were you to tell your children to remove their ear buds and turn off their DVD player and stick a cork in Kelly and Robert, you wouldn't have had to yearn. And you could have actually enjoyed your trip.
Then, only 10 miles from our destination, our daughter got inexplicably tangled in her seat belt. She was uncomfortable and starting to panic. The computer and MP3 players couldn't help.
Okay. Here's where this essay, teetering precariously along it for so long, finally goes over the deep end: when her daughter, who is apparently able to manipulate cell phones and MP3 players with ease, can not manipulate -- and indeed gets hopelessly tangled in -- her own seat belt. In the back seat of a caravan. While driving down I-95. And then, suddenly, well, those darned electronic gadgets can't help her!
(No, you're not missing something. I've read this thing five times now, and I assure you, there's nothing there to miss.)
Luckily, before I left New Jersey I had packed an old-fashioned emergency kit. It had a white rag (the pre-cell-phone distress call), matches, canned food and just what I needed, a pair of scissors. I cut the seat belt tangled around my daughter's waist and released her from her misery. The scissors may have been low on the tech scale, but they were just the right tool for the job, once we climbed over all the gizmos and gadgets to get to our daughter in the back row of seats.
So, just to recap: she had to surgically remove her daughter from a tangled, misery-causing seat belt. And thank God she had those low-tech scissors, or otherwise her high-tech daughter might just have... what, exactly? Been strangled? Suffocated? Forced to stop watching High School Musical for the forty-seventh time?
And don't you just love how all these gizmos and gadgets are the bad guys again, not just being no help but somehow rising up and getting in her way and preventing her from getting immediately to her bound-and-gagged daughter?
In our quest to be tuned in at all times, I hope we don't tune out some of the basic things that have kept us going for generations—things like simple tools, a Sunday drive, everyone singing the same song in the car.
You don't want to tune those things out, Ms. Segelman? Then don't. Tune 'em in. Turn 'em on. Turn 'em up. Who the hell's stopping you? (I mean, besides Kelly and Robert?)
Oh, that's right. You are.
I hope we can occasionally "single-task" as passengers and just look out the window, perhaps offering the occasional comment. Spotted cows, retro cars and even rainbows may be just around the next bend in the road.
When things like that -- or ostriches, crab trucks, and military caravans -- were around the next bend, we always saw them. And talked about them. And wondered about them. Because we all know -- and, in fact, have always known -- how to single-task. (Or at least, when we're listening to the same song or playing the same word game, double-task.) And we understand that the first step in doing it -- for you, for us, for everyone -- is to remember that parents have the authority, the possibility, and hell, even the responsibility, to make some rules and set some limits and decide not just how, but even when or if, anything besides the bodies of the passengers makes it into the car or even into the luggage.
You felt like five strangers in a minivan? That's a shame. Because we felt like a happy family in a 4Runner. And we had no one to thank but ourselves.
The most regular and awful offender, the downtown Tokyo for these great, big, fire-breathing phonies, is Newsweek's "My Turn" column, a regular feature that used to showcase thoughtful and original commentaries but that, sometime between accepting (and then never running) my media violence essay and accepting (and inexplicably running) that My 8-Year-Old Daughter Dresses Like Britney essay -- no, really; I wasn't making that up -- became a sort of clearinghouse for parents so busy writing about how the world conspires against them that they haven't had time to notice how often, and how foolishly, they conspire against themselves.
The most regular and awful of the recent My Turn offenders, Lisa Segelman's wretched ode to The Family Road Trip in a Digital Age, arrived in my mailbox a few weeks ago, right after I'd return from a family road trip of my own. I would, of course, have dismissed and detested the piece at any time of the year, but the perfect timing of it all made me all the more crazed and incredulous. I first referred to it here over two weeks ago, and I've been meaning to get to it ever since. Last night, I read it again. And I realized, once I was certain that my head would not actually explode, that the time had come to slice it up into some tasty TWM morsels and then share it with you.
We'll pick it up here in the third paragraph, after Ms. Segelman announces that her family of five has decided to (bad sign #1) motor south from New Jersey to Florida, recalls (bad sign #2) a golden-aged, salami-sandwiched road trip with her own parents, and admits that she thought (bad sign #3) this trip would be a chance to relive a simpler time. Once you've seen those signs, and especially once she refers to this current trip down memory highway, you know it's only a matter of seconds, or maybe even syllables, before the whole old/new, good/bad, simple/complex, innocence/expedience dichotomy rears its phony head and tries to convince us that we're all on the family road trip to some near-future hell. Less than one sentence later, Ms. Segelman does not disappoint:
...those 1,200 miles aren't what they used to be.
Perhaps because parents -- with some notable exceptions, of course -- aren't what they used to be.
Companionship and shared experience have been replaced by individual desires and personal technology.
Maybe in your car and your house, honey. But not in mine. And not in plenty of other people's. Because individual desires have always existed. (Yes, they even predate iPods and cell phones! Can you imagine?) And because no matter how many pieces of personal technology you have in your car or your house or your life -- and I'd be hard-pressed to imagine a family with more pieces of personal technology per capita than mine -- they only replace companionship and shared experience if they're allowed to. You know, by parents too cowed or compliant or indulgent to stop them.
Exhibit A:
I knew I'd have to combine the old with the new.
Well, you could have. And you probably should have. But you didn't have to. You are one of the parents, right? I mean, you are still in charge, aren't you? Aren't you?
Exhibit B:
I made speeches about library books, but also borrowed a two-screen DVD player.
I could rest my case right here. And maybe I should. But I won't.
She makes a speech about library books -- which, presumably, none of her children heard, because they were too busy listening to their iPods and blabbing on their cell phones -- but then borrows a DVD player for the minivan. The use of which she will not control. And will eventually lament.
Anyone see a problem here? An irony? A great, big, you-made-your-own-bed-and-now-you-gotta-lie-in-it-but-you-still-wanna-lay-the-blame-somewhere-else moment? A woman who wants her kids to read on a road trip supplies a DVD player and a pair of video screens for the back seats of her car. A woman who laments that her children will tune-in to technology and tune-out to her conversation supplies those kids with the biggest media source they'll have on the trip. She may as well have lamented her children's drug habit, then bought them each a crack pipe.
Anyone else think Ms. Segelman just destroyed any tiny scrap of credibility she may have been able to claim? If not, just wait...
What I didn't realize was just how much technology was packed already.
After all, how could a parent have any idea about, much less set any restrictions upon, the amount of technology her children are packing for vacation? It's not as if she has any interest or authority in the matter.
Reality check: for our recent family road trip, we knew every single thing, from technology to clothes to books to beach toys, that our boys had packed. Because we oversaw their choices. We supervised their packing. We approved -- or, on occasion, disallowed -- their choices. You know, because we thought it was our responsibility as parents. Funny, isn't it? And almost as quaint, it seems, as those golden-hued, salami-sandwiched road trips of yore.
But you know what was even funnier? That neither of our boys, even as they occasionally lobbied for a different decision, resented or rebelled against that level of parental involvement. Because they're used to it. Because they expect it. And, most importantly of all, because they respect it.
Aside from the DVD player, we had two computers, three MP3 players and three cell phones, which meant we connected to a lot more than the scenery.
Ms. Segelman would no doubt be shocked to learn that none of those gadgets is capable of turning itself on. Or that none of them is (yet) capable of overriding parental authority and limitations. Assuming, of course, those limitations are properly placed. And enforced.
On our road trip, we brought a laptop, a cell phone, two iPods, and two handheld video game systems. At various and appropriate times throughout the vacation, every one of them was put to use. But in the car, even as we logged close to 1,000 miles on the trip, only one of those things was ever put to use: my iPod. Which, plugged into the 4Runner's stereo system and set to shuffle, was the soundtrack for every single mile. That we all listened to. And grooved to. And sang to. Together.
Every once in a while, on a particularly boring and soulless stretch of highway -- think PA Turnpike from Blue Mountain to Carlisle, or NJ 55 from Camden to Millvile -- we let the boys pull out a couple of books -- you know, those humble alternatives to borrowed DVD players -- and read for a while. But for the rest of the trip, we connected to the scenery. And to the conversation. And so to each other. And yet, until I read Ms. Segelman's awful lament, I never once considered us exceptional.
I still don't.
Gone are the days of marveling at a new bridge or cheering as governors welcome us to their states via big border signs.
Bullshit.
Because somehow, against all odds, we managed to marvel at a new bridge (a wonderful new span over the Susquehanna River in central PA) and cheer our welcome to new states (while the communal iPod, bless it's little artificial intelligence, cued up Bruce Springsteen for our arrival in New Jersey). We also marveled at new roads and buildings and ballparks. At cows and corn fields and windmills. At shanties and tour buses and lovely little produce stands set up on the side of the road. We played The License Plate Game. We played Alphabet Travel and Road Trip Scavenger Hunt. We played Put the iPods and Game Boys Away While You Watch the Wonderful World Go By.
I doubt Newsweek would publish an essay about any of that. But we did it all. And we don't have a single lament to show for it.
Instead we had daily "tech checks" to make sure everything was charged.
Translation: We made sure everyone had fresh crack for their pipes.
There were so many cords traversing the minivan, it looked like a fully equipped kidney-dialysis unit.
I'll admit: this one sparks my curiosity.
What the hell were all those cords doing? They couldn't possibly be charging everything at once. And I doubt they were running an outlet strip out of the minivan's cigarette lighter. So to what was everyone plugged in? And if everyone was plugged in, and if there were cords all over the minivan, why the hell did they need those daily "tech checks" to make sure everything was charged?
We even added GPS to my son's cell phone (even though our position was I-95 from start to finish).
That's right, kids: a woman who laments the role of technology in her family's life allows her son to have a cell phone he surely does not need, allows him to use it in the car on the road trip where it surely does not belong, and even adds one more layer of technological hoo-ha for assistance they do not need -- surely even someone as slow on the uptake as Ms. Segelman should be able to follow one road all the way to Florida -- and then bemoans (for six sentences!) that she did it, as if the hands of the GPS Gods themselves had descended from the satellite-filled heavens and forced her, against her will and her howls of parental protest, to do so.
Is it possible this woman has been brainwashed by her children? By her husband? By Al-Qaeda? Because I can't begin to imagine another scenario in which she could have this little self-awareness. Or this little sense of irony.
That meant we had the voices of "Kelly" and "Robert" with us at every turn. If we tired of Kelly's too-seductive voice telling us to "prepare to turn left," Robert would encourage us to "prepare to turn right."
You know, because we had to keep them turned on. We had no choice. They were like HAL in 2001; they just took over, and we couldn't do a damned thing about it.
Oh, the humanity!
Although I brought along the fat AAA Tour Books,...
Once again, I remind you: they were taking 95 the whole fucking way.
Perhaps those books were like a safety net, a back-up plan in case Kelly or Robert went really crazy and wouldn't let them back on the interstate, or maybe tried to destroy them like SkyNet in the Terminator movies. I mean, I doubt she could have used the books to navigate, but she could have used them to attack, and perhaps eventually to disable, her son's cell phone.
I used them only to prop up the computer on my lap.
Anyone out there think she never turned it on? Anyone really think she, Ms. Technology-Is-Destroying-My-Family, never turned it on? (Yeah, I know this family's technology seems to be able to turn itself on, but bear with me, just for the sake of argument.) Or do you think she just rode all the way to Florida with it and all those fat tour books on her lap?
We didn't need them because the GPS was able to pinpoint nearby franchise restaurants, guiding us into the same Mexican chain for the same quesadilla we'd eaten three states ago.
And here, finally, we have proof that Kelly and/or Robert took over: they would, in their typically soulless and nefarious post-modern way, only direct this poor family to franchise restaurants. They rendered the car unable to arrive, and its passengers unable to eat, at anything other than the franchises that Ms. Segelman seems -- is it a cry for help? is she hoping the GPS voices won't read her essay? -- to lament. At least a little.
Not enough to prevent her family from eating there again, mind you. But enough to include it in the essay.
When I was the designated driver, my headphone-wearing husband and daughter would burst into laughter during choice moments of their movie, while my ear-budded son would randomly sing out, "Ain't no mountain high enough..."
Wouldn't you love to know, just out of morbid curiosity, what movie they were watching? (RV? National Lampoon's Vacation? 1984?) There is some consolation, I suppose, in the thought that her son at least has good taste in songs. (Though I have a sinking feeling he was listening either to the Meisha Moore or the Sanjaya Malakar version.)
"Anyone want a cookie?" I would ask. No answer.
Every time I asked, Anyone want a Starburst? or Anyone want a Life Saver?, I always got an answer.
"Hey, look! There's a real cotton field, right off the highway!" No response.
When I said, Hey, look, there's Boathouse Row! or Hey, look at that beautiful pond, I always got a response.
"Wanna stop in Georgia for pecan logs?" Silence.
And when I said, Wanna stop at Sideling Hill for a drink and a bathroom break?, I heard three resounding Yeses.
A traffic jam caused by an overturned truck filled with uranium got most of the family to look up. I guess it takes a nuclear threat to get a preteen's attention.
It only took a word or a phrase or a point to get my teen's attention. And my seven-year-old's attention. They must like me better than Ms. Segelman's kids like her. Or maybe I'm just a better parent. Or maybe Wendy and I just know how to prevent our kids and our technology from getting out of our control.
Which does, of course, prevent us from writing such simpering My Turn essays. Even if it does compel me to write about them.
For much of the vacation drive time, I was in my own virtual reality.
Judging by your writing, this was not much of a change.
I had no one to talk to, no one to share whatever meager experiences I-95 had to offer. I tuned in to some scratchy country-music stations and empathized with their loneliness. I yearned for the old days in my mama's Buick station wagon, rolling around the back hills of suburbia.
Without ever realizing that, were you to exert a little parental authority or influence, were you to tell your children to remove their ear buds and turn off their DVD player and stick a cork in Kelly and Robert, you wouldn't have had to yearn. And you could have actually enjoyed your trip.
Then, only 10 miles from our destination, our daughter got inexplicably tangled in her seat belt. She was uncomfortable and starting to panic. The computer and MP3 players couldn't help.
Okay. Here's where this essay, teetering precariously along it for so long, finally goes over the deep end: when her daughter, who is apparently able to manipulate cell phones and MP3 players with ease, can not manipulate -- and indeed gets hopelessly tangled in -- her own seat belt. In the back seat of a caravan. While driving down I-95. And then, suddenly, well, those darned electronic gadgets can't help her!
(No, you're not missing something. I've read this thing five times now, and I assure you, there's nothing there to miss.)
Luckily, before I left New Jersey I had packed an old-fashioned emergency kit. It had a white rag (the pre-cell-phone distress call), matches, canned food and just what I needed, a pair of scissors. I cut the seat belt tangled around my daughter's waist and released her from her misery. The scissors may have been low on the tech scale, but they were just the right tool for the job, once we climbed over all the gizmos and gadgets to get to our daughter in the back row of seats.
So, just to recap: she had to surgically remove her daughter from a tangled, misery-causing seat belt. And thank God she had those low-tech scissors, or otherwise her high-tech daughter might just have... what, exactly? Been strangled? Suffocated? Forced to stop watching High School Musical for the forty-seventh time?
And don't you just love how all these gizmos and gadgets are the bad guys again, not just being no help but somehow rising up and getting in her way and preventing her from getting immediately to her bound-and-gagged daughter?
In our quest to be tuned in at all times, I hope we don't tune out some of the basic things that have kept us going for generations—things like simple tools, a Sunday drive, everyone singing the same song in the car.
You don't want to tune those things out, Ms. Segelman? Then don't. Tune 'em in. Turn 'em on. Turn 'em up. Who the hell's stopping you? (I mean, besides Kelly and Robert?)
Oh, that's right. You are.
I hope we can occasionally "single-task" as passengers and just look out the window, perhaps offering the occasional comment. Spotted cows, retro cars and even rainbows may be just around the next bend in the road.
When things like that -- or ostriches, crab trucks, and military caravans -- were around the next bend, we always saw them. And talked about them. And wondered about them. Because we all know -- and, in fact, have always known -- how to single-task. (Or at least, when we're listening to the same song or playing the same word game, double-task.) And we understand that the first step in doing it -- for you, for us, for everyone -- is to remember that parents have the authority, the possibility, and hell, even the responsibility, to make some rules and set some limits and decide not just how, but even when or if, anything besides the bodies of the passengers makes it into the car or even into the luggage.
You felt like five strangers in a minivan? That's a shame. Because we felt like a happy family in a 4Runner. And we had no one to thank but ourselves.
Posted: Mon - July 23, 2007 at 12:56 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:51 PM
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