Since wireless telephony was only in its infancy by the 1980s, and since broad internet usage was realistically decades away, nearly all work took place at a physical location. “Chained to the desk” is a relevant description of how things used to be since being away from one’s desk often meant being away from work altogether.
Contrast the above with the present. To vivify the difference between then and now, compare a modern school with one from the past. To visit one in 2025 (at school dropoff, pickup, or events during the day) is to see how the internet, and the smartphones given life by the internet, are some of the most compassionate of modern creations. That’s because they make it much more possible for fathers to be fathers, and mothers to be mothers.
While Americans work more productively than ever as evidenced by soaring exports, consumption of subsequent imports, and equity prices, their work can increasingly be done from anywhere. Thank the smartphone for this. A supercomputer that fits into our pockets has literally unchained the American worker from the proverbial desk.
While the deep in thought lament the constancy of people checking their smartphones, and the allegedly negative meaning of same, they gloss over the towering brilliance of this development. Since work is no longer a near total function of where we are, we can increasingly be anywhere while working. And yes, deeply committed to work fathers can put a great deal more time into parenting much as deeply committed to work mothers can.
What’s comical and sad at the same time is that the growing ability of parents to – yes – be parents has unearthed all sorts of negative commentary related to this development. Readers know it. Formerly just parents, they’re now “helicopter parents.” How soon people forget, and in forgetting, how soon they ignore the common descriptor that predates the internet and smartphones.
Specifically, older readers doubtless remember not the days of helicopter parents (how could they, they were chained to desks), but instead “latchkey children.” Since the nature of work was near monolithically associated with a place, many more kids had to fend for themselves after school, including letting themselves inside the family space once the school part of the day ended. It’s a reminder that those prone to using helicopter parenting as a dig at “excessively involved parents” aren’t just spoiled, but also ridiculous.
Which brings us to the children of the helicopter parents. Supposedly the same smartphones that make it possible for parents to be parents are creating a generation of “anxious” young people. Nonsense. Childhood was always hard, particularly when parents and children didn’t have as much time together.
Smartphones not only make it possible for parents to be a great deal more present, they also make it possible for them to be present even when they’re not. Here it must be said that critics of smartphones can’t have it both ways: they can’t claim that kids are on them all the time, while also claiming they’re a danger to them.
That’s because Apple, Google and other smartphone makers have designed devices that make it possible for parents to track where their kids are, when they make it to school, when they come from home school, all the while controlling what their kids can do on smartphones, what they see, along with when they do and see. Which means parents can be parents even when they’re not around, quite unlike the past. Back then, the truly anxious were parents stuck at work while knowing little about where their kids were and what they were up to. Get it?
Hopefully readers do as legislators concoct all manner of legislation meant to allegedly protect kids from smartphones. It's nonsensical. What enables more time for kids and their parents together, and that enables more parental oversight when they’re not, is far from a threat. It’s in truth wildly compassionate, and something to celebrate.
