Pinball Brain

Has anyone seen my attention span? / Parenting in the era of the man-o-sphere

Welcome to another installment of The Bittersweet, where I share my search for a richer perspective on the Bittersweet moments that make up modern life.

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Hello Friends,

This morning, while standing in line at a coffee shop. I heard someone say, “Hey.” I looked in the direction of the voice and registered who was saying it, but it took me an uncomfortable amount of time to realize I actually know this person, that I’ve known her for ten years, and that I call her a good friend.

“Can you tell I’m off in my own little world?” I said. She replied, “I’m the same; it took me a minute to come up with your name.” And then we both laughed about how little focus and attention we have these days.

I was drafting this post on Monday to go out on Tuesday morning, but my brain was functioning more like a pinball machine than a complex organ capable of executive function. I was constantly switching from task to task, never really getting anything done, and if I’m honest, spending way more time “checking” Facebook and Instagram than I care to admit.

If a camera were in my house on days when the kids are at school, it would look like pure madness.

I wrote about this in my morning pages today and concluded that checking social media is like scratching an itch. It feels like something I need to do, and if I just scratch a little, the urge will go away, but scratching only makes it worse. More itching, more scratching until you’re either bleeding or shouting into the void, “YOU, SIR, REPRESENT EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY!!!”

Of course, it’s not all bad… There was that time I saw my friend’s daughter at prom, or a tribute to someone’s father who passed away recently, or that smile Kendrick Lamar gave at the Super Bowl…

There’s a lot of discussion from academics about whether social media is more like cigarettes or heroin… The idea that I’m forever chasing that one good time I had on Facebook when nine times out of ten, it’s bad, but I still go back for the bad…I’m leaning towards heroin.

I wanted to write about how hard it is to raise a good kid when our leaders seem so bad inside. Policies and politics aside, some of which I support (I’m looking at you, pennies!), they are truly bad people who endorse bad things.

My son is 13 and at an age where he and his friends say stupid stuff because they think it’s cool. It’s completely normal and age-appropriate, but I’m worried we are moving towards an era where saying things like,

“I was racist before it was cool.”

“Normalize Indian hate.”

“You couldn’t pay me to marry outside my ethnicity.”

It is just part of everyday conversation, and calling out this language is no longer a sign of maturity.

We don’t do “boys will be boys” in this house. So I feel stuck when things like this are, at best, excused and, in some cases, supported.

What I wrote was a rant. It was more performative than informative, but I think I can distill it all down to this one scene from Billy Madison.

I hear you scratching your head… Early Adam Sandler is not exactly known for his culturally sensitive message, but this scene shows how a high school jerk can look at his past behavior, realize his mistakes, apologize, and change.

I'd love some advice for those of you with older kids or children who have grown and flown. The 90s had Bill Clinton and all his faults. Today, we have Trump. How did you/do you navigate instilling good qualities in an era where bad qualities are so protected and alluring?

This is where I am today,

Thank you for listening.