Are we worrying too much about screens?

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Helloey to parents and other readers,

Of course, it was a big week for those of us who live in nerdland. The Scripps Spelling Bee!!!!!! We didn't have spelling bees in Australia when I grew up, which I always thought was disappointing, because it's the only thing I've ever been really good at. I was looking forward to putting my kids in spelling bees in my adopted land—and then I found I had two profoundly bad spellers. (I blame my spouse, an architectural genius who once asked if Massachusetts had a J in it.) But it's not just that they're not really word-people. Our family is not the kind of family who would have been able to do the kind of methodical planning and execution and repetition that being as good as the EIGHT kids who shared the Scripps trophy this week requires. We're more the kind of family to whom you can say at 9:45 am that you might go on a long hike that day and expect us to be ready to go with you by 10:15 am. It took me ages to learn to appreciate this. I wanted so much to be the Spelling Bee family. I think many of us think about the parents we wish we were too much. Please take some time to admire the parent you are. And actually, if you want to talk about the parent you are, I'm looking for a parent, anywhere in the United States, who left paid work to look after a child for a story I'm doing. Is that you? Love to hear from you! I'm at Belinda.luscombe@time.com or luscombeland on twitter. P.P.S. Thanks to everyone who bought Marriageology, my book on keeping the spark alive, or at least vaguely glowing. In case you missed me on CBS talking about it, here you go. (I can't watch it, personally.) P.S. If you like this newsletter, please pass it on to a friend. And if you got it from a friend, sign up here for email delivery each Friday. You know, more or less.

roundup

Like it or not, we are the first generation of parents who have to handle a life lived on and through a screen. The jury is still very much out on this subject, with lots of competing opinions about the long term benefit or damage these new devices are bringing with them, to both our children and to us. One school of thought, for example, argues that we should worry less about how much time we're spending on screens, and more about what we're actually doing while we're there. TIME

Meanwhile, however, gaming disorder is now a recognized medical condition, according to the World Health Organization. TIME

"Unentitlement." That's the term Stanford-based family researchers Phil and Carolyn Cowan have given to the phenomenon whereby women "do not feel entitled to putting their own needs, comforts or ambitions first, in relation to their male partners," when it comes to dividing up the parenting chores. "Often without being aware of it, women seem to feel they deserve to do most of the work simply on the basis of sex — and their children's fathers seem to agree," says the author of a new book in TIME.

One of the things most mothers do not have trouble remembering is the weight of their child at birth. (For example, 6 lbs 4-oz. and 5lbs 7-oz.) But one mom has an extra reason to never forget. Her daughter weighed just over half a pound. She's the smallest baby who has ever survived long enough to leave the hospital, according to records. And she has a steep hill ahead of her. But let's give a cheer for baby Saybie. TIME

Is it a huge educational error to abandon P.E. in favor of more science and more math and more reading? This guy makes a plausible case that it might be. Medium.

Come and mourn with me the skills our kids might never learn: How to successfully put the needle on the record without making a terrible scratching sound. How to time the cassette player so you get enough of the song you want to record from the radio without getting too much announcer. How to do a hill start in a car with manual transmission. And finally, how to tell the time from a clock with a face. Jimmy Kimmel shows us how tough it's getting out there for the big hand. TIME

PFFT: Parenting from Famous Types

Katie Couric, journalist and parent of two, to her daughter graduating from journalism school

"Hey Ms. Masters in Journalism. 'Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy. It is democracy.' -Walter Cronkite. ....You never cease to amaze me and amuse me."

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