Wake Up, Look Up

Hello everyone, and thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch, and in today's episode, we're asking the question, is parenting for the rich? This is prompted by an article I read recently in the Atlantic called " The Best Parenting Hack Is Being Rich". It's based on a study that came out recently out of the UK where British researchers had been looking at screen time usage across socioeconomic classes. And what they found is that the wealthier a family is, the less time their children spend on screens, and the more economically disadvantaged a family is, the more time their kids spend on screens. In other words, rich people don't give their kids screens as much as poor people. Now, the reason why this matters m is because studies are universal that screen time for kids is not great, particularly for toddlers. Toddlers can have, developmental delays, sleep problems, eating disorders, all caused by too much screen usage. Of course, the fear would be then that the wealthy are able to avoid these problems in their children and the poor are not. The rich get richer and healthier, and, and the poor go the opposite direction. Now, the caveat to this is that parenting studies are very hard to do. It requires parents, being honest about screen time usage. It could be that wealthier families, for example, have more shame about screen time usage. But the researchers are making the point that what they think it is is that wealthy families are able to afford more opportunities for their children. Their kids aren't on screens because they, they're playing sports, they're in clubs, they're able to go on play dates. Whereas, families that have less resources have less options. So a tired, wealthy parent who comes home from work and doesn't have the energy for their kids has a plethora of options at his or her disposal. But for a lower income family, the only option is a screen. And so the article calls for greater societal help for families in that bracket for the sake of. Of their children. I got to tell you, when I read this study. Listen, I'm not unsympathetic to the idea that it is harder to raise a family when you have less money than it might be if you had more money. But there are two problems I have with studies like this. One is, I don't like it when we're equating children with wealth. In other words, saying kids are expensive and it's hard to have them when you don't have money. Look, I think materialistic, consumeristic Culture is, is expensive. I have five kids. they are not eating my money all the time, literally or figuratively. It's not that hard to keep them clothed and fed. It becomes hard when I have 10 different subscription services to streaming platforms. When I want to go out to eat instead of making dinner at home, it can become hard, but usually at the end of my month, if my budget is stretched tight, it's not because my children are money grubbing monsters. It's not because the task of parenting is somehow coming with a price tag. It's a lot of times because I haven't made the best choices. And I don't want to make it overly simplistic, but I also don't want to see kids as a luxury for the wealthy. Here's the second problem I have with this. It's so dated. What I mean by that is, sure, every parent knows the temptation of being tired at any point in the day and saying to your kids, why don't you just go get on screens? You know they're going to be happy and you're gonna get some peace and quiet. It feels like a, hack. We might not feel great about it, but all of us have done it a time or two. But what do you think parents did 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 200 years ago? You think they were any less tired at the end of the day? You think children were any less demanding? No. The truth is this is not about wealth. This is about the technology that we have giving us the ability to be lazy and the lack of self control that all of us have, regardless of wealthy, middle class, poor to tell ourselves no, I should talk to my kids, play a game with my kids, involve my kids in what I'm doing. I shouldn't I just give them a screen? Look, the task of parenting is hard work. But it makes me think of Galatians 6 when the apostle Paul said, let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we, we will reap if we do not give up. Paul is talking about things like parenting, things that don't provide immediate reward, immediate benefit. He's saying, look, stay with it, do the hard work, be faithful to the task. God has called you in and believe in the end it's going to be worth it. In other words, he's giving us some advice. The cheat code you're looking for, the shortcut you're tempted to take in the end isn't going to help you, but doing the right thing, doing the work. Well, come all for parents having margin in life. I'm all for healthy balance, but parenting is a lifetime commitment and it's a 24 hour commitment. And when we decide to become parents we're deciding before God to step into a sacred task that cannot and should not be replaced by a screen. I think it's great to have conversations about income disparity, about what it looks like to live in this country or any country when you're wealthy or when you're poor. But I don't think we should let any parents off the hook for the epidemic of screens that is more about parental laziness. How do I know that? Because I've been guilty of it myself. Here's for a renewal of the sacred task of parenting and a resistance to the temptation of farming it out to screens. Hey, thanks for checking out Wake Up, Look Up. For more content, be sure to visit the Christ Community Chapel app or website ccchapel.com.

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