The Coolest Toy a Kid Can Have…My iPhone

Sometimes the New York Times Style section has its finger directly on the pulse that’s resonating in my life. That’s why they are hip and cool. Today a story ran about how soccer moms use their iPhones to placate their tiny tots.  And  boy, I can relate, having handed my iPhone over to Sofie and Nate hundreds of times during moments of difficulty or another reason to distract them.

The story was familiar…how to get the kids into the car to go to daycare? Just tune in the same show they are complaining about being taken away from and play it over YouTube in their car seat.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a newspaper article without dissent.  Jane Healy, educational psychologist, come on down!  She said that that children need ‘whole body movement and the manipulation of lot of objects–not some opaque technology….where is the language?  There is none.”  So Jane won’t be one of us who rely on their phones to placate her children and grandchildren.

There are other parents who won’t let their kids touch the sacred Apple product.  Comments posted on UrbanBaby.com reflect these harsher views…”we don’t let our toddler touch our iPhones…please, just say no. It is not too hard to distract a toddler with say…a book.”

Just for the record, Sofie loves books and constantly approaches us with that old technology just as eagerly as she embraces watching Elmo on the iPhone.