Member-only story
Drew Magary
Please God, No Phones at the Table
For the love of family and country, do not bring your device to dinner
I know you nominally come to this site for aggressively seasoned political takes, but as the summer winds down and the crushing routines of both the work and school years kick back in, I’d like you to make room on your plate for a spicy take of a different sort. But before you dig in, I have one simple request: put your fucking phone down.
During the last school year, my 13-year-old went to gymnastics practice every night from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. She’d arrive home VERY hungry, which happens when you spend four hours doing strength exercises and contorting your body into an ankh in midair. So I would dutifully prepare a meal for her well after the rest of the family had eaten, and have that food hot and ready when she walked in the door. More often than not, she would try to eat dinner while watching Netflix on her phone, headphones included. That’s when I would cease being a loving father and morph into a miniature despot.
“No phones at the table, man!”
“But I’m eating alone!”
“Talk to me instead! I’ll sit with you. We can talk about your day!”
“Oh my God, no.”
I have dropped this hammer on my daughter more than a few times, and you can easily visualize her reaction. The eyes rolling. The shoulders slumping. All the sunniness in her face just zapping away. She was really looking forward to watching Jane The Virgin with a mouthful of bowtie pasta, and here I was setting her plan ablaze.
I know it’s often a losing battle, but I have now reached the age where I’m cranky enough to keep fighting such battles until I die.
But I don’t regret being a strict enforcer of that rule. Other parents enforce it too, and they often get the exact same reaction from their kids that I get. Sometimes it feels like the rest of the fucking world doesn’t wanna hear that edict. People bust out phones at the dinner table all the time. I’ve had to ask my friends, my family, and even my parents to put that shit away. I know it’s often a…
