Mums neglecting their children by spending too much time on the internet

[EdieSedgwick]

Sorry for the Daily Mail link....

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1355346/Twitter-mothers-spend-hours-blogging-neglect-children.html

Now stop reading this and neglecting that child of yours...

Your youngest might be a boy - oops!

Liv77 DS2 sees the laptop come out and says "my turn? cbeebies?" I'm pretty sure he thinks it is HIS laptop and I'm just borrowing it.

"You can't type an extended answer to a post and speak/listen at the same time with any degree of quality"

exactly- that's why all of my posts in the day time, in particular - are a pile of waffly shite

and how do you know I don't pull faces at my ironing pile or the housework (I do actually - DS1 and 2 have recently very kindly videoed and photographed me doing it - that's what happens when you give a 10 and 7yr old gadgets which can take photos for Christmas )

I also raise my eyebrows and laugh at books and with my friends (in person)

If any of my DS's struggled with speech and language, and failed to crack/understand jokes (ok DS1 has no sense of humour - but that's just him), then I would maybe concede that it causes issues.

However, none of them have any issues with it, all speak (and where relevant) write, clearly,........

Although I hope to god they're learning grammar from school and not me - my grammar both written and spoken is not exactly good even at the best of times.

If DS3 wants cbeebies I either give him the remote control so he push the red button on the Cbeebies channel, or let him on the PC to play on the Cbeebies website

Only DS1 is allowed on my laptop - and even then it's only to go on Iamlearning.

I thought this was a well written article with more than a grain of truth in it. I'm sure it puts people off that it's in the Mail. I know it's left me feeling guilty, but probably deservedly so.

Totally agree with working9while5 about the difference between domestic drudgery (which I hate) and online chat. I always talk to the kids while I'm doing housework and a lot of it they do with me making it take ten times longer but when I'm online that's my own little interior world. It doesn't help that I work from home, on the laptop and often around my kids, which I suppose is bad enough in itself, but at least serves a purpose.

Baroque, my boy is also doing well with his language.. I gave it as an example of something that is happening without a parent being aware, the issues with this laptop stuff are probably different (though not necessarily).

I'm not saying it Has To Be So re: negative consequences but it is a shift in how we communicate and there will be consequences, there always are: the written word reduced people's memory for oral narrative for example. On the other hand, books are fab.

I do worry about my own internet use though. It's such a waste of life, sometimes. Not always - have learned a lot here, too.. but there have been days I've hung about the house following some mad thread instead of doing something more productive. Not frequently.. but it does have a pull, especially if you are feeling lonely or unsupported. Not sure that the lesson I want to pass on to my kids is that if you're stuck in a friendship rut you should post lots of random crap online.

Yet here I am. Sigh.

agree.get a job stop fannying aboot on mn,houswewifes tapp tapping all day

time to mn all day=time to work.lazy boots

maybe some of you don't talk to your children while you're online - but I do. I'll stop mid-post, I'll pause a game (or let the time run out), and I'll go to them.

Only time I won't talk to them (as much) when I'm on the computer is when I'm actually doing something, so putting a video together, setting up a service, editing the newsletter - I need to concentrate for those, and they know if I'm doing them then I'm effectively "working" and that unless it's a dire need then they'll have to wait - and instead of me talking to them they usually get a hand signal which they know means "just wait until I've got this bit sorted"

DS3 and I have lovely cuddles and chatter in the afternoons when he gets back from nursery - on the sofa, with me on the laptop and him sat next to me snuggled up telling me all about the fire engine, or the paint fight or the cucumber he had for his snack, and him "telling" me what I'm cooking for dinner later (oh yes he gets the point of cooking - cooking=food [grin[).

Right - probably x posts with about a million people now as DS3 obviously wanted to test me - heard coughing from upstairs and what sounded potentially like being sick.......it was - he started crying as I got half way up the stairs. He's now all changed, blah blah blah and settled down again.

I know I wouldn't spend any more time "talking" to my children than I do now if I had no internet - I've been there and did it.

I din't sit with my back to them, and they know that if they come and talk to me and I'm just "faffing" around online, rather than the "doing" (as I think I mentioned further up my post) then I'll talk to them.

Righteo - best go and put this stuff in the washing machine. arghh

Ah scottishmummy. How predictable. Of course anyone who posts prolifically online doesn't have a job .

how predictable to refute it.certainly the online housewife if they can spare hours might be better utilised doing something better

Predictable in what way? Have never interacted with you online before. You really have a bee in your bonnet about SAHPs, don't you?

Personally, I would say that the person at work who spends hours online is more of a concern. At least the SAHP is only wasting their own time.

lol,i paraphrased you.predictable straight back at you.seeing you brought it up

Oh, as a young child would do?

dont think youre like young child,dont be so hard on yourself

yes - I do agree it's easy to waste a day on a thread - but then there are a 1000's other ways to waste a day and get noting productive done (including playing with your children) - that doesn't include meeting/seeing RL people.

I can post regularly as my laptop is portable, most of my recipes are kept on here, and it only takes a minute (or less if it's just a quick reply) to post a message.

I could probably spend less time online in the evenings.......

But during the day either I'm "doing" something on the computer, or else the DS's are happily entertaining themselves in an activity that they enjoy,

After dinner is probably my post "prolific" posting time when they're all awake (and at home), usually at that point DS1 is either reading or doing his homework (something which he HATES me intervening in), DS2 will either be listening to music (and dancing around the room), drawing, playing with the cat, or reading, and DS3 usually likes to play with his cars or colour/draw at that time.

I can't draw for toffee - and even DS3 laughs at my attempts to draw things for him - so I'm best keeping well out of that one.

Why should I feel guitly doing something I enjoy doing while they're doing something they enjoy??

At least they get more than an "uh huh", "ok" "yes" "no" from me than my parents used to give me when they were "busy" doing something.

of course the prolific poster during the day could work part time, or evenings/nights

though quite frankly (having now read the full article) if they are talking about the sort of parent who thinks that

"?My online time is no different from being at a toddler group chatting to mums rather than being sat on the floor knee-deep in Lego"

The I have to kind of agree - that's an extreme too far surely. I mean - don't most normal people have "face to face" interaction with other humans while their children are around???

I thought from the start of the article it was talking about parents who did both, and talked to the their children, in between. Not those that think that on-line interaction is a replacement for real life interaction

(though I use my online interaction to organise my off-line interaction )

It's the Daily Fail Baroque, they only do extremes. And lies.

the wee arrows are an annoying way of doing an "aside" or "talking to herself but just loud enough for everyone to hear her"

I've been told it's more annoying than the .......................'s I used to do but less annoying than the "ing I used to do [shrug]

Maybe I should get a real life - oh wait - I have one of those too as well as an online one

fit in nicely then.dm daily linked on mn anyhoo

SM, with that comment, you've rather proved my point.

Baroque, no SAHM here. Just don't see the need for repeated dismissive comments about "housewives".

With reference to equating online life to real life, absolutely! It seems strange to fail to see the difference there. But yes, the Daily Fail.

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