iPad Parenting and Sir Reachy Head

On Thursday, Madilynn had her second grade school program. I was only 45 minutes early, which meant I had to sit in the second to back row, because my children attend a school full of children whose parents are a tad psychotic about loving to stand in lines for hours and be crazy early for stuff. I am not that sort of parent, I like to be crazy late, but this time, I swear I was early and I still couldn't get a good seat.

So my family and I hog up an entire row of seats, and then this smaller family sits in front of us. But they weren't smaller in size, just in number. Well all right, fine. They were skinnier, too. But the man with them was terribly tall and he was also extremely reachy.

What I mean is, out of all seven of our seats, I couldn't find one to sit in so that I could see around this man. Seven seats, you guys. He was a super villain, too. Because no matter which direction I leaned, he leaned the same way at the exact same time. And he couldn't see me. I am typically pretty patient, except for anything that has to do with school, so maybe that played a role here, but it took him less than three minutes to thoroughly piss me off. And it wasn't like slight annoyance I was feeling. It was rage. I hated that guy. I still hate that guy. That guy and his reachy head haunt me.

So then, when the program started, I was trying to sort of extend my vision in an impossible arc, over the guy's head and back down onto the stage, when I was met with this view:

This is a very high-quality photograph of exactly what happened, as you can see, lest you be tempted to doubt my story.

If you look real close at that one dude's iPad, you can see my daughter in the video he's taking. Lesson learned: when you live in an affluent school district, you will not be able to watch your kid in a school play live, however if you squint, you can watch them on the iPad of the parent in front.

This is another pet peeve of mine. I love technology and gadgets. If I had the money, I would so own an iPad, and probably a mini one and I'd be on the waiting list for iPad 27 or whatever it ends up being called by then. But honestly, I don't want to live my life in digital. If my kid is doing something cute or amazing, or more likely completely bad, I want to be there in the moment and experience it - not watch it through a 4 inch screen. And especially not through a tiny screen I don't even own.

I propose a segregation. (That's right. I do. I realized it the moment I typed it, but I'm too lazy for backspacing so just hear me out on this.) I propose that iPad Parents sit on one side, and Real Life Parents sit on the other side. This means two things. One, I will not be forced into iPad Parenting; and two, I will have one side of the cafeteria/theater all to myself.

Oh, and bonus point: Sir Reachy Head is on the iPad side. (Like I had to tell you, amirite?)