An antidote to the iAnnoyance

After this angsty post last week, I knew I also had to admit how I contributed to the problem of our family interacting with technology too much and each other too little.  I admitted that I spend far too many hours clicking away on my laptop, content to hide behind some guise of work or relaxation. But if we are all doing the same, who has any reason to do differently?

So I did something different. I convinced my mom that we would bake banana bread together. She loves, loves banana bread, and has also recently expressed interest in baking. It took some talking into because she was tired after church and wanted to rest the afternoon, which worked fine as I left the house to catch up with a friend. But after dinner, we pulled out ingredients, mixing bowls, and measuring cups. We had my little brother drive us out to get baking soda (seriously, no one in this house bakes!), and at 9 pm we made banana bread, with my favorite recipe pulled up on my laptop screen and the occasional tip or "this is how I usually do it" passed along.

An hour and a half later, I laughed as my mom seemingly ate ever other piece as she cut the fresh-baked loaves. She was so delighted, the bread was so good! Even better, I gushed, "Mom, this is what I love: just doing things together. No computer, no iPhone, nothing fancy...just doing things together." And even though that triggered her mildly-sad reaction that she forgot to take a photo, it was far too late to ruin anything. I had intentionally and successfully spent an evening with my mom, so much that she didn't even have a chance to think of the people with which she would share this. That was probably the best way I could have spent my second-to-last night at home. It took foresight, it took some persuasion with my mom...but I am proud and pleased. So is my mom, who admitted that she is more confident in making this after we first made a batch together. "That's the point," I think I said aloud, but the inward reaction was probably more like, "Success!"

As a bonus, I jokingly mentioned to my mom that she could easily make another batch, since we had so many bananas laying around. But she took it seriously, so the very next day, she made more banana bread and passed it along to some friends. She's since happily forwarded me the texts she has received in response.

Twenty four years isn't too late to bake with your mom for the first time. Twenty four years is far too young to give into another week spent staring at a screen instead of spending time with each other. And so I write this as a reminder to myself...almost in a sense to think of family time creatively, much like I often find "things to do" just to create time with the students I work with...this could work, this has worked, and this is too incredibly simple not to try.