Thursday, December 2, 2021

Book Review: Baby, Unplugged

I'm slowly getting through my stack of books I have to review, but at least I had the prescence of mind to take notes as I went through books. Sometimes I'm just super smart, you know? 

Baby, Unplugged - Sophie Brickman

A charming, meticulously researched, and illuminating look at how technology infiltrates every aspect of raising children today, filled with helpful advice parents can use to best navigate the digital landscape, and ultimately learn to trust their own judgment.

There’s an app or device for nearly every aspect of parenting today: monitoring your baby; entertaining or educating your toddler; connecting with other new parents for tips, tricks, and community—virtually every aspect of daily life. But it isn’t a parenting paradise; the truth is much more complicated.

The mother of two young daughters, journalist Sophie Brickman wondered what living in a tech-saturated world was doing to her and her children. She turned to experts, academics, doctors, and innovators for advice and insight. Baby, Unplugged brings together Brickman’s in-depth research with her own candid (sometimes hilarious) personal experience to help parents sort through the wide and often confusing tech offerings available today and to sort out what’s helpful and what’s not.

Filled with relatable and entertaining stories as well as practical takeaways, Baby, Unplugged is destined to become a touchstone for parents today, giving them the permission to forge their own path through the morass of technological options, to restore their faith in themselves, and to help them raise good, social, and engaged people in the modern world.
Parenting is really hard, folks. I think parenting has always been hard, and every generation has a particular challenge to overcome. Right now, you can go on literally any parenting message boards and easily find countless posts about teens on social media, but more of an umbrella topic is kids and technology. Children have access to various forms of technology at younger ages and while parents are guilty of handing a tablet over to their child to keep them quiet while they shop, sit at a restaurant, travel, etc., and we're all so busy that we aren't really thinking about the long term consequences of that. 

I'm fully guilty of doing this myself, so I can't even sit here and act like I'm the better mom with this. 

What I can tell you is this book is a really interesting dive into parenting in current times, while giving kids access to technology at reasonable levels. What is a reasonable amount of time for someone to be on a computer, tablet, phone, etc? How do you decide? You also have to look at other forms of tech, how can we limit our children's access when we are attached to our phones? I know I'm guilty of being on my phone, taking photos of everything, documenting all of the fun our family is having. Which is great, but where am I? I'm not in it. I'm not having the fun, my children aren't going to have photos of me being with them, and that's a topic we're seeing more of on various parenting websites. 

The author covers all of that in section one. You know what else is covered? Shopping online. (I'm seriously writing about this as the UPS guy is dropping boxes off at my back door. It's shameful. I'm literally the mom the author is talking about here.) What else are we guilty of? 

You know you've flipped on some Daniel Tiger, left the cute kiddos in front of it so you can go start some laundry or eat your hidden candy as you cry in a closet. 

I know I'm not alone on this. 

It's totally covered in this book. In all though, this is a really interesting book, which covers all of the big topics we wonder about. I'm not going to lie, when I think about technology and children, I'm more worried about my elementary school aged children, and of course the middle/high school kids, too. I feel like it is easier to control the technology access with babies and toddlers than it is older children. Regardless, this is a pretty solid read for parents who struggle with technology, they will likely relate to the author because Sophie Brickman relates in a way that it feels like you're chatting with your friend who knows what she's talking about. 

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for having me on this tour and sending me a copy for review!

   
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1 comment:

Shooting Stars Mag said...

This sounds really fascinating. I don't have kids, but I always find books that focus on various aspects of parenting to be really interesting. It's a hard job being a parent! And I can't imagine how tough it is to limit screen time when your kids start getting older.

Lauren @ www.shootingstarsmag.net