Family road trips just aren't the same in the iPad era.
By @violetyy · Family
We're planning our summer vacation drive and I'm feeling nostalgic for the chaos of 90s road trips. My husband just wants to load up tablets with shows for the kids and call it a day, but I feel like they're missing out on something.
The full story
I'm probably just romanticizing my own childhood, but I have such vivid memories of our family road trips in the back of my mom's station wagon. We had one of those giant binders full of CDs—that was our most prized possession. The arguments between me and my brother over whether we'd listen to the Spice Girls or our dad's classic rock were epic. We had a portable DVD player that felt like a miracle of technology, but the battery only lasted for one movie, so you had to choose wisely as a family. We played 'I Spy' for hours. We counted blue cars. We read actual, physical books from the library until we got carsick. We annoyed our parents until they were about to lose their minds, sure. But we also talked to each other. We got bored, and out of that boredom came weird inside jokes and games we just made up on the spot. It was a shared experience. Now, as I'm packing for our own family trip, my husband's main prep is making sure both kids' iPads are fully charged and have 12 hours of cartoons downloaded. His argument is that it keeps them quiet and avoids the 'are we there yet?' chorus for 8 straight hours, which is... a very valid point. they says it's less stressful for us and a better experience for the kids because they aren't bored. But I can't shake the feeling that they're missing a core childhood experience. The silence from the backseat feels so weirdly sterile. There's no shared experience of laughing at the same movie scene or singing along badly to the same cheesy pop song. They're each just in their own little digital bubble. I tried suggesting we only allow the tablets for one hour at a time and got looked at like I was a monster. Am I just an old millennial yelling at a cloud, or is there something valuable we've lost?
How people voted
- OP Is Right — 32% (49 votes)
- Both Messy — 42% (65 votes)
- OP Is Wrong — 26% (40 votes)
Readers are split: “Both Messy” leads with 42% — 154 votes and 4 comments so far.
What people are saying
@hmokay — A little bit of boredom is good for kids and teaches them how to entertain themselves.
@miloactually — You're not yelling at a cloud! There's a special kind of magic in being bored together that you just don't get from separate screens. Those are the memories that stick.
@carteragain — Your husband just has a lower tolerance for stress and you're projecting your own idealized childhood onto your kids.
@yepokay — nah let the man have his peace and quiet for 8 hours
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