I've said it once and I'll say it again: I miss letters

I got a lot of reaction to my post on cell phone mommies. Some comments came directly to me in email and all of them were saying that I should be more compassionate towards moms and parents. I never intended to be one of those judgmental people that think they know how to raise kids. A friend explained to me that getting the kid in a stroller sometimes is the only time a woman can have quiet time to get some adult interaction. I can dig it. I just remember getting a lot of attention from my mom. She talked to us, sang to us, took us to the park and on walks, made us food, played music and read books.


So I noticed that the global phenomenon of increased methods of communication that go with us everywhere has led to more chatter - in L.A. nearly everyone in the car is also on the phone - it makes me curious to know what the generation of kids growing up in this chatter will be like. I just joined Facebook after getting the sales pitch from several friends. I've already had a couple of conversations with people on it that I wouldn't talk to on the phone and haven't talked to in email, we just haven't been that close. Which means, we're trying to keep in touch with a lot more people than we used to.

In high school I had penpals in Europe that I wrote letters to. I corresponded with my grandmother in Ohio and a couple of friends in other parts of the world through the mail and they were special relationships. Catching up on the phone was a big deal, and you had to actual be home to do it. I had less friends than I do now, but the same number (and for the most part the same actual friends!) of close friends because despite the cell phone, email or Facebook, I can still only be close to the same number of people. One of the mommy comments was from a friend in Spain who wrote that he came home from work one day to find his wife and newborn crying together because after an hour and a half of trying to calm his baby, his wife had become desperate. It broke my heart and made me appreciate that we're in touch through the blog, although in 1989, we used to write letters!