Waiting for a connecting flight through Honolulu, my two sons sit beside me digitally pacified. One on a tablet and the other on an iPhone, they’re playing something called Brawl Stars. For the past week, their collective gaze has alternated between breathtaking vistas on the Big Island and a labyrinth of warriors on tiny screens. They’ve seen lava light up the night sky, a rushing waterfall from a zipline, and sea turtles on a black sand beach. Yet, when given the chance, Brawl Stars seems to be their vacation activity of choice. So, I have to wonder what difference the past week made in their lives, seeing as though we didn’t need to travel across the Pacific for mobile gaming.
It’s fair to say, they’ve become today’s prototypical teenagers glued to their phones. Exploring the Big Island involves lots of driving which equals screen time in the back seat of the GMC Terrain. When driving behind mountains, the boys would announce: the “Ha-WiFi” was down. So when they couldn’t play Brawl Stars, they were talking about Brawl Stars, or perhaps watching videos of Brawl Stars streamers. I don’t know much about this game, but I do know that there are different characters with unusual names and varying abilities. Ryan apparently doesn’t like facing Edgar, who should be in Ryan’s fighting stable, but he missed out on earning the character a free gift last season? I don’t know. I was in the front seat trying to find shave ice.
Intellectually, I’ll always defend this generation and their phones because we would have been the exact same way. All they’re doing is entertaining themselves with what’s available to them, just like every generation before them. I’d be lying if I said the 13-year old version of me wouldn’t want to learn all the finer nuances of brawling with Fang, Stu, and Ash. Heck, there was a time when I thought eating cereal on the couch with a cable box cord running back to the TV was the height of luxury. For all of you who wish to reprehend this age group, let ye who never played Legend of Zelda while listening to Def Leppard in your 5 disc CD-player cast the first stone.
While I recognize the pull of the digital world within the phone, I don’t understand choosing technology over nature, say…sitting on the lanai watching the Pacific crash into a lava rock wall. Or maybe I do. The boys might have hung out on the lanai, but that’s where their parents were. We’ve grown well past the point where the four of us can cram into a single hotel room with two double beds. In booking this trip, the search criteria evolved into more space and more beds. When we weren’t snorkeling, hiking, or ziplining, the boys mainly hung out in their “rooms.” Chase’s mantra on the vacation was “close the door on your way out.” Once in a while they would emerge for food, WI-FI passwords, or the all important charging cable. Yes, privacy has become a prized commodity in the Matsumoto household and Ryan & Chase are shrewd traders.
One of the paradoxes of parenting is that the goal is to raise independent children, yet when our children display that independence we’re surprised by it. The boys are finding their own spaces and spending less time with Mom and Dad. When I was a teacher, I told countless middle school parents that this is the age when our most important peer group shifts from family to friends. Great! Our boys are developing just like they’re supposed to! Still, this trip highlighted that I’ve reached the parenting stage where I can feel not being chosen and on some level it’s second grade playground kickball all over again.
You may think we didn’t spend any time with the boys in Hawaii, which is not the case. The phones were put away (for the most part) when instructed and the boys willingly participated in everything from card games to family selfies. Meal times featured the usual spirited debate and occasionally spilled drink. To my surprise, both boys accepted an offer to play Trivial Pursuit–not on a phone, the actual board game with the cards and wedges of pie. At times, technology actually brought us closer together. Chase I played an epic series of Yahtzee games on his tablet and without the app Chase wouldn’t have learned the game. (Who am I kidding? Chase could learn any game.) On one drive, we took turns singing makeshift karaoke using Spotify.
Looking over at my two teenagers, they’re sitting at an airport gate, laughing and having inside conversations. Is it possible I’m worrying too much about my own experience and not considering their viewpoints? Entirely. Kids will take something away from every experience and it’s probably not what was intended. Jenni recalls fondly the Disney Cruise when she spent most of the time playing ping-pong with her brother. My aha moment from visiting Niagara Falls as a boy was that Chinese food, while weird looking, is actually delicious. So this trip will be remembered as the Brawl Stars vacation; we still went on it together.
