signs of strain

Kia ora friends,

The photo accompanying this post was a slightly performative selfie, taken on a Monday morning a few weeks ago, when I was about to deliver a zoom based presentation. I’d prepped my slides, checked my content. All good. And there’s nothing like a bold red lip to cover for the fact that one may have slept in that t-shirt!

Well, blow me down if I didn’t log into an empty zoom room … did the ol’ stuff up the dates thing. It was a presentation booked with some northern hemisphere folks as well as kiwis … the timezone shuffle meant I was actually not due to deliver until TUESDAY morning, by which time the bold lip was long gone!

That’s not all – the week before last I had a local meeting to line up the next Baby Lounge (whoop! whoop!) and I drove to town, parked the car. marched into the cafe and ordered peppermint tea and a kick-ass looking veggie toastie. Sat myself down … and only then realised I WAS IN THE WRONG LOCATION. We had agreed to meet somewhere completely different. Yeah, that is a GREAT first impression!!

Friends, I am holding too much in my brain. When shizz starts to drop like this, I know I am spinning too many plates. Last week I had the weird and unfamiliar feeling of getting to a Thursday night and rather than feeling jubilant about the forthcoming Friday, I felt like I could use a couple more days before the weekend, to try and get a bit more done!

Anyway, roll on the links. Which are plentiful and interesting.

Here is a reflection by an Australian Dad, about Father’s Day* and about fatherhood more generally. (*we just celebrated … I am so grateful for the Fathers in my life. My own, my daughters’, my nephews’. I make lasagna for you all and I love you).

Here is a systemic review about technoference in the lives of babies – I was rather jazzed about this publication even before I learned that it cites a paper by my research team and I! Now I’m a bit giddy about it 🙂

HERE is an excellent essay by Dana Suskind about protecting childhood in the age of Ai, published by our pals at the Center for Humane Tech. Same but different is this piece in the Atlantic, predicting that a childhood free of chatbots will be a sign of affluence. Conversely, here is a bit about Ai Slop in the lives of children by Katherine Martinko. You might be sick.

I don’t know how much I have shared of the exceptional Nootism project? I am reading and re-reading portions of this – it’s pretty dense and sometimes I need to give it a couple of goes, but it is so worth it. Check out this wise passage, which is at the end of the piece i just linked to… I love their deviation from standard formatting, moving beyond a conclusion with this wisdom:

Instead of a Conclusion: One Message

You do not have to agree with every hypothesis I have presented today. But if you remember only one thing, let it be this: a young child learns from people, not from screens.

If we give the child back the human world – face, voice, touch, rhythm, waiting, language, and love – development can begin to turn again. That is our hope. That is our work. And that is why this is not a war against technology. It is a defense of the human being.

We may continue to build smarter machines. The real question is whether we will still raise human children. Because no screen, no algorithm, no robot can replace the living presence through which a child becomes a self.

Technology can be a tool. It must never become the child’s world.

Let us awaken – because the human being becomes fully human only in wakeful relation to another human.

Let us give our children back the human world!

Well said, Stoyan Vezenkov.

Finally: there is an election rapidly approaching in NZ – if you have not registered to vote, please do so. Ex-Pat kiwis use this link. Then consider the Child Poverty Action Group manifesto and the latest news from the Environmental Defence Society as you decide how to vote. Please. Oh, i’ll stop pretending I’m anything like agnostic. I just wanna Ditch the Pricks in 26!

We need a palate cleanser. Here’s some assorted gorgeous stuff to uplift your spirits. Arohanui, y’all. Stay cool and calm xxx