Amy's week, Apple Pickin', Social Erosion
It’s Amy here this week. It’s been a typical farm week. Running around filling orders, making delivers, squeezing in a bit of school, cleaning, cooking… I can’t tell you how many times lately people have told me that I’m going to miss this season of life. And you know what? I actually believe them. As crazy as life is these days, my kids say and do the darnedest things. They make us laugh all the time. I’m so grateful to be able to raise them outside, even if that means washing filthy clothes and dirty kids every evening.
Saturday was our big Herd Share delivery day to Abingdon and Marion. Will loaded up the big transit van to the brim. We’re so thankful for all the families who make the trek to the Farmers Markets to pick up their meat on a Saturday morning.
I told Will that I need two Sundays. One for church and rest and another for house cleaning, catch up, and prep for the upcoming week. We managed to squeeze both into one day somehow.
Monday the kids and I loaded the transit van up again and headed to Knoxville for another delivery. We delivered a half beef to a sweet family in Maryville and orders to Knoxville families. This is the kids favorite delivery because they get to play with cousins all evening.
Tuesday morning we rushed back for our homeschool co-op classes at church. That evening, after catching chickens, all six of us squeezed onto the four-wheeler and rode through the fields. We picked apples from a huge apple tree on the farm. Sweet memories, but sour apples.
Wednesday we processed 173 chickens and cut up over a hundred of them. Shout out to Aunt Peggy and Uncle Jimmy who celebrated their 48th wedding anniversary by processing chickens with us. So romantic! Our chicken season is winding down. I enjoy processing day, but I also love to see the season coming to an end! It gives us time to miss it and look forward to starting back in the Spring.
Thursday The kids and I loaded back up into the van to deliver meat to families in Bristol and Kingsport, TN. From there we headed to Knoxville to take a few days off! I’m on a weekend getaway with some college girlfriends and the kids are with my parents. Will gets a quiet house, but he’s also picking up all my slack. He’ll be cleaning the cabins while I’m gone and setting up for me at the Abingdon Farmers market on Saturday, so stop by and say Hello.
During one of these road trips I listened to a podcast that really impacted my thoughts about phones and screen technology. A friend of mine sent me a link to “The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast” hosted by Ginny Yurich episode 194 (Adults Can’t Imagine How Bad Kids Feel) with special guest Sean Killingsworth, the founder of the Reconnect Movement. Sean is a college student who talks about what is happening to his generation. The erosion of genuine social connections.
I (Amy) got my first cell phone in high school, but it was not a smart phone. I joined social media as an 8th grader, but I was using dial-up internet to connect on a computer. I can admit to being very attached to my phone and using it way more than I wish I did, but I don’t know what it’s like to grow up the way kids do today. Sean talks about wanting to make friends and talk to people, but it was hard connecting to people who were constantly connected to their devices. He talks about a quiet lunchroom because everyone is scrolling their phones instead of being silly teenagers. These social devices have made kids less social and more isolated.
“This stuff has kind of messed us up. It’s messed up some of the aspects of our childhood, specifically social media and just screen time in general because we live our lives not fully in charge of our time. We’re not always just choosing what we want to do. Sometimes we just get trapped in an addictive hole of entertainment or fake socializing on social media.”
“It was really the social environment that was impacted by the phones, distracting us from in-person interaction and basically outdating it and making in-person interaction a thing of the past to my generation.”
“They need friends that don’t have their phones so that they can have friends because phones are such a big barrier, such a divider between kids being able to interact.”
“We get that we need things in place for protecting childhood…”
My hope is that many families can join together and help kids reclaim their childhood by creating “a mini-community of no-phone kids.” By creating environments to truly socialize. Not only did it make me think deeply about our future house rules for screen time, but it made my take a hard look at my own phone usage, especially when my kids are around.
We are thankful for our phones and all the unthinkable technology that comes with them. We couldn’t farm the way we do or figure out how to get meat to as many families throughout our region without it. BUT we need to be more intentional with when and how we use it. Not using mindless scrolling to replace the opportunity for growing relationships with people sitting across the room from us. Our devices can be amazing tools. But they can also be destructive toys for us and especially our kids without setting parameters and proper limits on their usage.
“If a kid has a fully equipped personal screen with all this entertainment for them, they’re not going to just put it down. It has to be facilitated.”
“Someday our kids are going to ask us: ‘Why? Why didn’t you have more limits? Why didn’t you protect my childhood? Why did you give me that?’”
Have a great week!
Amy