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Comment by altacc | Hacker News Reader

Definitely a thread where I want to know if a commenter has children or not. Before becoming parents many people have opinions about raising children that afterwards turn into understanding of actually why parents act the way they do.

But I still don't like the idea of this tablet at all, for various reasons, mainly screen time, developmental impact, subscription & ads and vendor lock-in.

Edit: yes, I have children. They don't think they have enough screentime and we think they have too much. Probably means it's about right.

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Not just that, but:

- how many kids do you have

- do they have disabilities

- do they go to daycare (aka how many hours are you directly responsible for them)

- do you pay for babysitting or have family nearby that can do that duty (aka how many hours are you directly responsible for them)

- what type of environment do you live in (can you let them run outside)

- do you do 100% of your cooking, cleaning, etc

- etc

In other words, there are so many factors at play here, but all the vitriol and high horse behavior typically doesn’t talk about that. In many ways, raising kids is harder than in the past, due to smaller and disconnected families, 2 working parents, fear/panic of letting kids roam outside, etc. Much of this is a societal failure.

Do I need to have children to evaluate the past, present, potential future and my own upbringing together with science to tell you what should be the perfect parenting?

No.

I grew up at a time, were people had no tablets available, guess what? We did not need bright light tablets when we were 4,5 or 6 to sit in a Restaurant.

We didn't need 'tablet time'.

The message is very easy: The more time and energy you can give to your kids, the better off they will be.

In retrospect, i watched too much television. I would have loved it if my parents would have shown me more things, motivated me more, trained with me etc.

Am I bad now? No. Do I think my parents were bad parents? No. Avg perhaps but not good.

Its your decision at the end of the day how you handle your kids as long as its not legally neglect. But don't think that others can't determine if a table is a shitty idea or not. And i don't takl about the 'special' events like traveling to some 1-4h distance or whatever, i talk about daily live the thing which engrains neural pattern into your kids.

You ever watch that movie Good Will Hunting and there’s that scene where Robin Williams is talking to Matt Damon next to the lake about how you can read everything and become an expert about everything in books? Like Matt Damon can tell you everything about the Sistine Chapel, the history of it and whatever else. Robin Williams follows up that it’s a completely different experience having actually been there, the smells and the general awe of experiencing it in person.

Everyone is entitled to their spirited opinions and advice, parent or not, but you’ll lack some mutual understanding or connection of a real lived experience to someone that is a parent until you actually become a parent yourself.

I'm arguing from the point of view of a kid.

I know who i am today, i know who i could have been if my parents did certain things different and better.

Everyone's experience is singular and of that time. Go back in time and you'll find people saying "we didn't need TV/radio/magazines/cars/etc..." and that the new technology of the day was a plague on our society. Times change, we have to work out how new technology fits in, not shun it.

As to "The more time and energy you can give to your kids, the better off they will be.". That is very simplistic and like most things is more complicated than you first think. Children get used to being entertained, be it by a tablet or a parent. There is a downside to both, in that it is also good for a child to be able to entertain themselves and comfortable by themself. (Tablets & TVs aren't a child entertaining themselves.) From my personal experience, intensive parenting where attention is maximized on the child isn't healthy for either parent or child.

All this to say that simplistic takes tend to fall apart once they meet the complex variety of reality.

I still see this from my own view and in my lifetime we already had TV and later on internet.

i had to learn certain aspects of life after it.

"The more time and energy you can give to your kids, the better off they will be." -> this wasn't meant to babysit them, but also pushing them to go to some sports thing every week etc.

But still, I do think, even if you have to (AI might change that though) sit in front of screens, if yo udon't put certain behaviours into a kid, it will be a lot harder for them to do it by themselves.

I also do not think at all, that a kid with 4 needs to watch television more than half an hour a week if even. Then the question is also educational vs. entertaining.

I do understand were it comes from, but often enough, its more used as "ah others are doing this too, its soooo exhaustive etc. etc." but you won't see how the person grows than a lot later in life.

There are people who teach their kids disciipline, mental stability, social etc. They are all the successful people not commenting on hn, watching tiktok, etc. because they are a lot more busy with their lifes.

I'm still successful, but my life would be better/easier if my parents were better in being parents.

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