When schools start back up in the fall, you’ll often hear people say, “I’m going to ban all devices at home. I want my kids to have a childhood like mine.” But I feel like I’ve heard all this opposition and people saying, “Ban tablets!” The calls are most numerous in late spring. Store end caps are filled with water balloons and sunscreen, inboxes are filled with camping reminders, and kids are trying on sandals to see what they should buy—summer is coming. As a result, Millennial and Gen X parents want to give their children the beautiful, idyllic summers of their youth. We want them to step away from their iPhones, ignore their tablets, and forget about Roblox.
But if you want your kids to have a ’90s summer, you have to be a ’90s summer mom too.
And it’s a little more work than you think.
Everyone says the ’90s were a “simpler” time, but I really think that only applies to the impact social media had on parenting. The 90s were simpler because everyone cared about their own jobs and most of the time, as parents, no one knew what was going on in other people’s lives. No one will know if you haven’t put out a recycling item in the last three weeks unless you tell them. No one felt the heat of 800 comments calling you a bad mother for weeks after filming your child throwing a tantrum. None of us ever felt like we were the worst parents in the world by being made to scroll through “real mom” accounts day and night.
But do you know what mothers were doing in the ’90s? Dropping off the kids at sleepovers and talking to other parents. Go to the library and have the kids run up and down the aisles for an hour. Take the kids to the grocery store and let them choose their own kids’ dishes. I trust teens to walk around the mall for an hour with $20 in their pocket and a group of friends.
I love the idea of kids having a device-free summer, a 90’s summer like I had. But that means I have to be careful.
That means if you’re like my family, you have to be prepared to drive the kids to the park and ride their bikes at 7 a.m. before it gets too hot. That means you have to go to the grocery store and let them choose the ingredients they need to make the cookie recipe they found in the cookbook. That means I have to be willing to let the house become trash while they build forts, mix paint and Play-Doh together, and track mud around the house as they look for items to “float and sink” to play with in the yard.
i must be my Summer moms in the ’90s had to say yes to almost everything, put aside their own comfort so we could have fun, and go meet and socialize with parents I barely knew so I could go to Six Flags with my friends for the day.
My mom was always happy to have friends over, drop me off somewhere, pull out 8,000 craft supplies and let me spend six hours at her dining room table. Once, she made my brother and I dig a hole in the backyard to look for dinosaur bones. Then he pulled out the sofa bed and let me eat dinner on it while looking at it. Jumanji.
If you had an idea for a milkshake and lemonade stand, she said yes. She didn’t even bat an eye when we dragged all her toys out into the yard. When we asked for a video camera to film ourselves doing the puppet show, she made sure the batteries were new.
If you’re not willing to do that, you might want to give the tablet back to your kids now.
Because we all know that half the battle with kids and screen time is that we go crazy without them. If our teens couldn’t FaceTime with their friends, they’d ask us to take them somewhere to spend time together. If the kids can’t find anything to do other than play Roblox, they’ll wander around the house and annoy us, demanding to play Candyland.
We’re giving them devices so they can just shut up and do something. That’s fine! But if you want your kids to have a ’90s summer, you have to be prepared to embrace all the emotions of a ’90s mom.
You’re going to yell at him 800 times to stop fighting. Plan on telling your children things your mom has told you, such as “Only bored people get bored,” or “Hey, I’m bored. It’s Mommy. Nice to meet you.” You will beg them to leave their space, go upstairs, and go outside. You have to sit with your kids while they swim in the pool, you have to take them and their best friends to the movies, and you end up going on playdates with other moms when you really don’t want to.
You might feel anxious about letting your child ride a bicycle alone in your neighborhood. I want to find fireflies, so I end up going for a walk even if I don’t feel well. Trust the scissors so they can open the popsicles themselves.
You’re going to be a 90’s summer mom, and it’s going to be exhausting, sticky, and overstimulated.
But it’s better than staring blankly at your iPad for four hours, right?
