Text Message Morons

You gotta hand it to Celia Rivenbark. Anyone who’d title a book Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank has my undying admiration and gratitude, but I digress. Today Ms. Rivenbark takes on the army of text-messaging zombies at a live theater performance and scores a direct hit. Check out her diatribe here.

Too bad the zombies will be too engrossed to notice. As Ms. Rivenbark notes at one point, “My beef is with the grown-ups. If you’re bored with what’s onstage, why don’t you haul your rude self out into the lobby and text-message yourself into an exhausted puddle? Text-message until the paramedics have to come and sew your stupid thumbs back on. But don’t pretend you’re getting ready to push the nuclear missile codes and the whole world is waiting. You just told your husband to pick up dog food at Costco. You are a moron.”

Now I have no beef with text messaging. They’re handy to use if you have to reach someone who’s in a meeting and has the ringer off. But, like Rivenbark, I don’t see the point of the constant messaging (notice how “text” has become a verb?) when you’re in a live venue with real, live people. Like your kids.

As I teacher, I get annoyed with parents who fob off the “teach your children well” advice to an army of caregivers, programs, and sports coaches. I’m not talking about busy moms–have you ever met a mom who isn’t busy?–I mean the ones who get that panicky look when they’re forced to spend unconstructed time with their own spawn. Those moms–usually the ones driving expensive SUVs and Pilates-toned within an inch of their designer bag lives–may dress their kids in the latest expensive garb, but they’re “raising” a generation that has no idea how to interact with real people. Go to your nearest trendy bistro and take a look-see around the room. When you spot the table with dad on the BlackBerry, mom (who almost always has a $200 highlight job) on her cell, and kids either texting their army of “friends” or vanished into iWorld, you know the people I mean.

Full disclosure: I own a cell phone, a Palm, and an iPod. I have been known to talk on the phone when my kids are in the car. I don’t send text messages. Sorta know how, haven’t taken the time to master the skill. But I also talk to my children. I was thanked by a fellow teacher in the Publix yesterday because I was making my son do the math to determine whether the Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry on sale at 3/$7 was a better buy than the store brand, and I wouldn’t let him use a calculator. Poor kid, expected to divide in his head and talk to his mother live. I torture his sister in a similar fashion. He’s ten, she’s eight, neither one has a cell phone. Or an iPod. Oh, the horror.

Come on, grownups. Back away from the electronics for a while. You might find that your children–and the adult friends you ignore in similar fashion–are far better entertainment.