You know what, I used to be awesome at texting.
Roughly a decade ago when I was in college {and just got texting on my flip phone for the first time} texting was my forte’. I knew how long to wait before texting certain people back so as to not look overeager. I would save particularly wonderful texts and look at them often. Hours-long text conversations were awesome. I could just sit there, waiting for my phone to “ding” again, all the while crafting perfect 160-characters-or-less responses on my keypad. Even without emojis, I could get my point across. I never forgot to respond to a text, even if some time elapsed. If a text conversation started lagging, I knew how to throw out a coquettish statement that would make people ask questions and keep on texting.
That was all before kids…
Life happened, and I graduated from college, got married, and had our first child two years later. My texting skills didn’t hit a brick wall at this point, but they certainly started to erode. Overwhelmed with the demands of taking care of a tiny, sleepless baby, I sometimes didn’t have the mental energy to put together a clever response to someone’s texts. Even though my phone was often in hand while I was nursing, I would sometimes look at a text, start a response, get interrupted, and then totally forget about it until days – sometimes even a week – later! Other times, I would read the message, respond in my head, but totally forget to actually respond with text. Regardless, the days of hours-long, nuanced text messaging was totally over.
I no longer was good at telling stories over text; I was struggling to just respond to regular messages.
Things only got worse with the birth of my second child.
This time around I actively tried to have my phone around less while I was nursing, to “connect” more with my son {this really just turned into more dozing while nursing}. With two kids, a 2-year-old and an infant, I felt creeping guilt every time I picked up my phone to text when they were around. I also saw some sad stories online, where young kids wrote notes to their parents saying that they wished that cell phones had never been invented because their parents were always looking at their phones. After that, every time I would pull out my phone when my husband and kids were around, he would tease, “Mama, we wish we were cell phones!”
Added to all of this was the perpetual notification “ding!” on my phone, which started driving me crazy. All day long, my lovely children were little notification machines of their own, constantly asking or needing something throughout the day. Between them and my phone, I felt that my days blurred into a persistent stream of alert after alert after alert… It wore on my brain and my patience.
There was always a demand on my time and I was over it.
My texting skills and timeliness continued to crumble.
Finally in 2018, when Apple debuted its “screen time” app, I had a real revelation. Suddenly, I could see how many times I picked up my phone in a day, how much time I spent on apps like Instagram and Facebook each day, and how many notifications I received per day.
I felt sick to my stomach. I couldn’t believe I was mindlessly bleeding so many hours away on my phone. I quickly deleted some apps and set time limits on my social media usage, which helped a bit, but my texting ability still has not come back fully.
Today, I try.
I try to balance being attentive and present with my children with also responding to social demands coming from my phone.
One way that has worked for me to combat the stress of constant notifications, is to leave my phone in one place for a few hours, letting text messages and emails pile up until nap time or some other break in the day. I give myself “office hours” {usually 15 minutes} to respond to all of them, uninterrupted, all at once. Then I try to leave my phone alone for a few more hours. This has really helped. My total usage and pickups are less than half of what they used to be.
Do I still forget to respond to text messages? Yes. Sometimes, it’s the old things: I’m too stressed, not feeling clever, children are around, or my “mom brain” kicks in and I plain forget. For all the texts I don’t respond to… I am sorry. I really am not trying to be mean or blow anyone off! I’m so grateful for people who understand this about me. I have a beloved friend who will text me interesting things about her day, and even if I don’t respond, she doesn’t seem to get offended with me. She just keeps on texting me the next day, and the next, knowing that our friendship is good and it’s just a busy season of life. I appreciate this enormously.
If you love a mom who is bad at texting, keep on loving her. Don’t give up on her. Keep on texting. Someday, in some new season, she will text you back… probably.
