Ah, the text message ellipsis. It’s the ultimate face slap.
Unless promptly followed by a reply, it means you’re being ignored.
And that might make you feel some unpleasant feelings.
Espesh if you’re the parent paying for the little brat you’re trying to reach to use it.
This is why one mom came up with an iphone app to freeze the handheld device of the kid cold shouldering them. But since the options for the person falling victim to the disabling app are to call only a list of specific contact numbers or dial 911, it seriously makes me worry. I mean we saw what happened that fateful Friday when Facebook went down. Yes. People actually summoned emergency services when they couldn’t post a status for a few hours.
This is my surprised face about that .___.
And here’s the face of the mother who made this new app:
Oh dear. That’s not a victory mug at all.
Tell me – does that look like a mom whose relationship with her kids has been improved by this two dollar app? Or one who’s exhausted and suffering the anticlimactic aftermath of scouring the earth to construct a nanny-nanny-boo-boo phone program? I’mma say the latter. ‘cause she’s making that same face I have as I take a nine iron to the cars of people who cut me off in traffic after I follow them home and wait for them to fall asleep.
Or not wait. Depending on the day.
One upmanship and retaliation should be reserved for your daytime soap stories and the political floorshow you pretend you effect each election. Not your interactions with your kids. This app isn’t a terrible idea, but used as anything other than training wheels to remind them of who pays for the phone and what the phone’s for could just make for more rebellion on their part. Might it be better to communicate with them? I mean, that’s why we’re disabling the phone when they don’t answer, isn’t it? ’cause we wanted to communicate? And the primary problem is that they are appropriating their phone’s function for interactive entertainment while eschewing communication with you? Good! Now we’re getting somewhere. So what’s the solution?
To answer that we have to go back to the drawing board and ask:
What’s the common denominator?
Close! It’s the phone.
We’re on the right track with the disabling idea, and I like the direction you’re going here, lady. But instead of snidely I-gotcha-mother-fcker-ing your kids with unprecedented shut-down apps which only breed further hostility, why not level with them? The problem is non-communication. The common denominator is the phone. Do you love your kids? Good. Then try to remember what that actually means – not giving them cart blanche to do what they want, but finding an outside-the-otter-box solution instead of the easy one where mom and dad turn into the teacher from Matilda and Danny Devito and spread that “’cause I said so” bullshnit.
So how’s about a family app for a few hours of after hours disabling?
A real family plan – where everyone disconnects to reconnect. Get back to shiz that matters. Break bread with the people you share blood with. Take a walk. Talk. No, I mean TALK. Same rules’ll apply – limited phone numbers and emergency services, but – for all’a you. No exceptions. Wait, that changes things, doesn’t it?
When the only real answer is to put in work, the negative answer sounds better, huh? Much easier to control people grown from your loins with rage instead of empathy or compassion. And you know, I get it. Totally. I have 90 percent fewer intact dishes than I started out with when I moved into my home because of how often I used to try to get my point across with the nonverbal crash of glass and china hitting the kitchen wall through the years. Whether it’s active or passive aggression and who it’s directed at doesn’t matter. Feeding these emotions is like throwing one of my casserole dishes at you that’s been sitting in the oven. You might get hurt, but guess what? I still burn my hand. Who wins?
Well… me, actually. Kind of. But my point is that it still sucks for everyone. So, maybe think about that before you shiz out another dermis coated marionette who won’t call you.
Till then, I’mma try to make #DisconnectToReconnect go viral.
And maybe do a kickstarter for my hypothetical app.
So I can make bank off your family time.
