> Most parents just watch TV, stare at their phones and don't want to be bothered by anything that requires effort.

No?

Most of the parents around me are busy each working a full time job and doing their best to raise their kids.

They now spend some of their free time reading on the phones instead of a newspaper, magazine, or book. Some listen to books while they mow the lawn, clean the house, or do other chores like laundry. They also hang out a mix of kids and parents nearby, both inside and out, in front of bonfires and kitchen tables. RN I'm commenting on HN while my kids and neighbor kids turn dinner into an imaginary cooking show at the table.

Parents around here are also often tending to elderly parents or physically/mentally challenged relatives.

Too few can afford to have one parent stay home fulltime.

Of course there have always been parents neglecting their kids to do anything else: bowling, drinking, partying, traveling, tinkering, obsessively reading, etc. The fact that more activities are behind screens isn't the catch all explanation it's often promoted to be.

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jajko 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Yes? You mention it too - parents glued to their phones, part of the problem. Kids seeing their parents reading a book vs being glued to their phones really isn't the same thing, far from it. They can come and see pages of printed text in a book, vs some endless tiktok/instagram feeds of shallow video entertainment. Guess which they will stay around and stare endlessly without even blinking.

Screens and especially active content are incredibly addictive and small kids have no way of being rational and throttle their use. If they see the same behavior in their parents that's it.

Its not about having stay-at-home parent, but about spending the time with kids to be 100% physically there for them and them only, no running screen of any type anywhere in sight. Lets be honest, this is a rather rare sight.

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dmix 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

People always want to blame the new thing in culture. Some collective sin if only we had better self control. Every generation has one.

Usually it’s just institutional failure at multiple levels and a whole bunch of people who don’t care about the institution’s output sufficiently.

Every time I read about new education stories they’re busy trying to solve wider social issues instead of being the best place to get an education. Just like how libraries turned into homeless shelters instead of being a place for the community to learn and read.

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moduspol 5 days ago | parent [-]

I agree, but it’s tough to see the studies showing average daily screen time of different age groups and not see that as a pretty obvious contributor.

	▲	dmix 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Nothing wrong with a bit of social control if you’re doing it in a controlled measurable way. As long as you’re not just treating it like a boogieman while ignoring how schools are simultaneously becoming less motivating places to learn. Bore a kid to death by not challenging them or holding them accountable then they will 100% default to their phone to escape the tedium.

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thehappypm 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Wait, you’re literally on your phone while your kids entertain you…?

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tartuffe78 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Get off the phone! I see so many parents are restaurants, both glued to their phones while their kid is bored our on their tablet.

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throwawaybob420 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

People like that guy like to jerk off to their thoughts and think they alone know the issue, and that it’s because people are lazy!!

Reality check, income inequality makes it so that parents have to slave away to earn the bar minimum to survive, participate in the gig economy, and then deal with tax cuts that give the richest of the rich even more money, while suffocating social services in their neighborhoods.

This is end stage capitalism, squeeze the rubes for every cent they have and damn their kids