About Distracted Daddy
Distracted Daddy is a working father with a two-year-old daughter, a focused wife and a flatulent pug. When he’s not distracted he blogs about poop, parenting and other things at distracteddaddy.com.
Parenting Expert, Steve Jobs
the fatherlode: iparenting canada
(Feb.16.12)
For generations parents followed the expert parenting advice of Dr. Spock. Eventually his Vulcan parenting techniques fell out of favour. Other parenting experts filled the void he left.
Recently, we’ve been following the parenting advice of Steve Jobs. Yes, Steve Jobs, the inventor of the iPhone/Pod/Plant/Pad. He’s not your typical parenting expert but he’s doing a fine job raising my daughter.
You see, at some point our house became an unofficial Apple Store teeming with i-products. It didn’t happen on purpose, I’m no Steve Jobs worshipper. His company just took over popular culture and I got swept along in the current. Turns out the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
My daughter is an Apple convert. She’s obsessed with my iPhone and iPad.
To her the addiction to Apple technology is not about the Apps or the clean design or the rising stock prices. It’s about one thing, YouTube and the access to unlimited streaming Elmo videos or “Elmos”. The moment we showed her that the iPad and iPhone were gateways to Elmo videos it was over.
Once that Pandora’s Box was opened, she became obsessed with all iProducts. Everyone’s iThing became an iElmo.
Showing her Elmos on the iPad/Phone started as a simple way to mollify a tantrum or teach our daughter where celebrities go when they’re bored. Eventually she stopped requiring us to interface with the devices for her. She could do it herself.
Soon she became a natural. She just intuitively understands the touchscreen system. She knows how to slide the bar to unlock the iPad. She can scroll up and down when selecting a specific Elmo video to watch. She loads the video and presses the play button for it to start. She even waits impatiently when it’s loading.
It’s as though Steve Jobs had toddlers beta-testing the touch screen system.
She knows all of Apple’s entire product line intimately from iPhone to iPod. She’s growing up a child of Apple in a touch-screen world. She tried to turn off the TV by swiping the screen recently. She became confused when it didn’t work. I suspect her future entertainment centre is going to look a lot like Minority Report.
She’ll never remember a world pre-internet. I do. I remember getting the Internet, before it existed. My daughter will never know the incessant screech of dial-up. She doesn’t have to wait until Sundays for Elmo. Elmo is available on demand and demand him she does.
These days when I arrive home from a long day at the office typing away on my iLaptop, I’m greeted by an excited toddler. My daughter hugs me and then without waiting a beat she asks, “Daddy, I watch Elmos on your phone?”
And here I thought she was excited to see her iDaddy.
Image Credit: Henriksent/Flickr
Thought That Was Sweet? You'll Enjoy: