Dear www.baby.geek.nz<\/p>\n
You are a dear wee website. \u00a0You have given me a place to file my thoughts and preserve a gigantic number of links (* or portals to wonderlands of learning and discovery, as I like to think of them).<\/p>\n
You’re a bit of a secret, though, which is cool, but there is this thing I love to imagine you doing. \u00a0Just quietly. \u00a0I love to imagine that you, www.baby.geek.nz, have improbably become a useful launchpad, catapaulting conversations between thinking parents and scattering chat among other assorted family-folk.<\/p>\n
In a world gone bonkers, only you manage to somehow bring together a pot pourri of links that is JUST SO MY CUP OF TEA. \u00a0Which shouldn’t surprise me, because I posted every darned last one of them. \u00a0Beginning with THIS, my very first blog post<\/a>. \u00a0Awww, cute.<\/p>\n I do love you, darling website, and I promise I can change. \u00a0Please, baby(geek), just give me a little more time. \u00a0I dream of a bright future for us,<\/p>\n love,<\/p>\n Me xx<\/p>\n End scene.<\/p>\n Anyway, I’m obsessing more than usual about these notions of communication and internet and purpose because last week\u00a0I went to a Social Media 101 training day. \u00a0 Holla, Enterprise North Canterbury!<\/a> \u00a0Tumeke, Simplify & Amplify<\/a>!<\/p>\n It’s all very fascinating, and I kinda dig learning about the psychology of marketing, and why people do stuff and how to get them to do the stuff you think they oughta, I am horrified by what my dear late mother would’ve called the Coca-colonisation of the world. \u00a0The blatant and aggressive enslavement of populations by corporations too slick and sneaky to be outfoxed. \u00a0Really, I think we should all buy less. \u00a0Use less. \u00a0Do more for ourselves. \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n And the whole technology of twitter and facebook and all their chums is flippin amazing. \u00a0 As a tool, it’s the way to find all the peoples who care about the things. \u00a0Nana over here has to do some work … cos I’d love to find some thinking mamas and I think that’s where they are and yet I FEAR the lure of the devices. \u00a0Both for myself and for all of us!<\/p>\n Pads and Macs and smart phones and regular (dumb?) phones … OH … behold these amazing ads from China about resisting the phone addiction FOR THE CHILDREN<\/a>\u00a0…<\/p>\n … here’s the thing …. I’d love it if we could all\u00a0get<\/em> the fact that societies of useful adults – that is, adults who are kind, competent, smart, healthy, capable, or at least not incompetent dicks – those sorts of adults are more likely if they were gifted responsive, warm, calm, loving care while they were babies. \u00a0There. \u00a0It’s that simple. \u00a0I said it.<\/p>\n Not just me. \u00a0Heaps of people. \u00a0Like Harvard’s Center for the Developing Child<\/a>. \u00a0Heaps.<\/p>\n And you cannot tell me, not even for a second, that the brains of human young will be as effectively nurtured by distracted adults whose faces glow from their device du jour<\/a> than they will be by an adult available to meet their gaze, respond to their vocalisations, and make up lame songs.<\/p>\n Ladies and gentlegeeks, I think we gotta unplug more. \u00a0For ourselves, and sure as the dickens for our babies<\/a>.<\/p>\n I mean, I’m all for the flow of mindfulness teaching<\/a>, (at school! \u00a0Love it.) \u00a0I am generally very Mindful of Mindfulness, but I can’t help but think we wouldn’t need quite so much mindfulness training if we just spent a wee bit less time skittering between devices and leaping between operating systems.<\/p>\n It’s like how we eat tons of fatty food<\/a> and then obsess about weight loss. \u00a0I’m talking about us as a culture, not YOU. \u00a0Or ME. \u00a0Just all of us, you know? \u00a0Truly: if we did like Michael Pollan<\/a> … “eat food, not too much, mostly plants” and then went for walks<\/a> and did some yoga then VOILA! \u00a0Wellness.<\/p>\n Sorry. \u00a0I’m a bit didactic and grouchy tonight. \u00a0I’m angsting.<\/p>\n Yeah, I angst about encouraging folks deeper into the digital world and further from the juicy messy deliciousness of real life. \u00a0And yet I love the handiness of a magical box that sings the commercials of my youth<\/a> and finds me amazing recipes<\/a> and connects me to people I love, all over the world.<\/p>\n What the flip. \u00a0Modern life … I need me my online yoga<\/a> before bed. \u00a0Love you, Adriene, my electronic friend!<\/p>\n Irony, she lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear www.baby.geek.nz You are a dear wee website. \u00a0You have given me a place to file my thoughts and preserve a gigantic number of links (* or portals to wonderlands of learning and discovery, as I like to think of … Continue reading