Three Things, Week 42.23

Some thoughts on solitude, helicopter parenting, and 'time confetti'

The lake, where I spent 3 days alone this week—Algonquin Highlands, Ontario

Happy Wednesday from the cozy cocoon of my little backyard office! You have no idea how happy I am to be here—which leads to the first of the three things I’ve been contemplating over the past week.

1. The Double-Edged Sword of Solitude

I spent three days holed up in my parents’ off-grid cabin on the edge of Algonquin Park and discovered something very surprising about myself: I am not a fan of prolonged solitude. This came as a terrible shock to me. I revel in the six hours of solitude I get each day when my kids are at school. But I think the reason I love it so much is because it’s sandwiched between hours of family noise and chaos. Take that away, and the day becomes undefined, empty, and hauntingly silent.

I enjoyed the cabin immensely during the daytime and was highly productive, writing more than 30,000 words for a new manuscript. I woke up exhilarated that I didn’t have to supervise a music practice, pack a lunch, put on a load of laundry, sign permission forms, and have repeated little visitors to my backyard office between 6:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m., asking me to assess the ferocity of a sketched dragon, or compare the technical attributes of this fighter jet to that fighter jet, or weigh in on the optimal technique for training a wild chipmunk. Instead, I was allowed the luxury of my own uninterrupted thoughts. My sole responsibilities included writing and stoking the wood-burning cookstove.

But at night I felt uncomfortably alone. Not afraid, just lonely. After 14+ years of raising kids, I’m not used to sleeping without another human presence nearby. Not only was I alone in the cabin, but I think I was the only person on the lake. There were no friendly lights shining from across the water. The nearest person was 20+ kilometers away near Dorset. I missed home.

An early-morning gift from my youngest child, obsessed with Calvin & Hobbes

I’m back now, with a new appreciation for my flush toilet, though there’s a price to pay for that; I haven’t made any further headway on that manuscript, due to incessant distractions!

I wonder if a love of solitude is something that must be cultivated consciously, or if it will come with time as my children grow and leave home. I do faintly remember being astonished by the arrival of my first child and the endless barrage of demands he brought with him, so maybe I’d get used to the peace and quiet again.

2. Parents Do Too Much for Their Kids

This week, the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital published the results of a new national poll on children’s independence. It found that 84% of parents of 9- to 11-year-olds acknowledge that their child would benefit from time spent away from adult supervision, but results show that they are shockingly bad at allowing it. From Melinda Wenner Moyer’s writeup:

• 42% of parents don’t let their child stay home alone for 30 to 60 minutes

• 50% don’t let their child find an item at the store while their parent is in another aisle

• 67% don’t let their child walk or bike to a friend’s house

• 71% don’t let their child play at the park with a friend

• 85% don’t let their child trick-or-treat with friends

The top impediment parents cited was fear of someone scaring or following their child (54%), though this was inconsistent with the mere 17% that said their neighbourhood wasn’t safe for a child to be alone. Parents said their kid wasn’t ready (32%) or didn’t want to do these things (28%). Some feared retribution or criticism from other parents, neighbours, or even the police, while, ironically, 25% admitted to having criticized another parent for not adequately supervising their child.

The report authors say that these behaviours could be “unintentionally restricting [a] child’s path to independence,” aka preventing a kid from growing up properly. They’re absolutely right! This is alarming because it goes against the whole purpose of childrearing, which is to escort a child from a state of total dependence to full independence over the course of roughly 18 years. This means that both parties—parent and child—must be stretched and challenged continually to do this.

I also believe that a child who lacks the skills to navigate the real world is ultimately less safe than one who walks with confidence, who knows their way around, who can talk to strangers when needed. Not only does it make the world feel like a less scary place, but it also makes your job as parent much easier. You can relax, knowing your kid has got it covered.

Related Post: Talk to Strangers

3. Time Confetti

For the past 24 hours, my cellphone has not worked unless connected to Wi-Fi. This is because of a region-wide Bell network outage. Neither the post office nor the bank can conduct business as usual, which I discovered yesterday when I attempted to deposit a cheque. “Sorry,” they said. “Machines are down!” It’s the fourth time this has happened in the past six weeks, which is enormously irritating.

Out in my new backyard office, however, I don’t have Wi-Fi, just a hardline that plugs into my laptop for work. (Yeah, archaic, I know.) That means that my phone doesn’t work when I’m out there, and it has resulted in a surprising ability to focus.

I like to think I’m generally quite good at not looking at my phone for silly or superfluous things (like social media), but these outages have made me realize how often I pick it up for “work” purposes—texts, calls, email, etc. But even these are a form of distraction, shattering my focus into what journalist Brigid Shulte described as time confetti, when “devices fragment our attention as we flit between them and real life.”

It's got me thinking about how many seconds and minutes are lost to unproductive and unsatisfying multitasking, not to mention missing what’s happening in the real world, just because our phones are always there, right at our fingertips and so full of juicy random information—and thus, irresistible.

And why do we/I wait for something like a Bell outage to benefit from this enforced disconnection? I want to make better use of airplane mode just to block everything out for longer chunks of time each day, to gather up that confetti and make it into something whole.

In other news:

Author event this Saturday, October 21 at 2 PM!!!

If you are in Saugeen Shores, Bruce County, or southwestern Ontario, please come out to the Port Elgin library, 708 Goderich St. I’ve worked very hard on a talk called “6 Myths About Digital Media That You Can Stop Believing Today.” There will be a Q&A, books for sale, and refreshments. I’d love to see you there. Bring your friends!

And if you haven’t picked up your copy of Childhood Unplugged yet, you can order it directly from the publisher, your favourite independent book seller, or wherever books are sold. Reviews are always greatly appreciated!

You Might Also Like:

• Three Things, Week 41.23: Canadian Thanksgiving, dopamine-induced ‘acedia’, and an olive tree for peace

• Three Things, Week 40.23: Pumpkinfest, teens with smartphones, and cream cheese cookies

• Childhood Unplugged Is Finally Here!

Thanks for reading, and please share this newsletter with your friends if you enjoyed it! — Katherine