My son isn’t getting his mitts on anything connected to the internet anytime soon
I keep reading about the benefits of brick phones and landlines by folks who are trying to figure out how to keep the next generation safe from the perils of the internet. My seven-year-old is wonderfully excited about the sound of a brick phone. What’s not to love for a young child? It has the words brick and phone in it.
I’m preparing for the reality of a brick phone – one with basic features so he can stay in contact, but no web access – to land in the next few years for him. The kid ain’t getting his mitts on anything connected to the internet anytime soon.
The revival of the mighty landline (the idea being that it still offers children agency and contact with friends) is something I am much more excited about. Not least because I effectively ran a switchboard as a child, such were the volume of calls I fielded and made during my post-school and weekend shifts. The sheer joy of this autonomous communication away from adults! And using fancy tech too!
My parents did not share in my joy, regularly imposing bans and limits due to the bill and time consumed. Or just picking up another handset mid-call and interrupting because they needed to speak to someone. (I still shudder with embarrassment at the thought.)
What I didn’t realise is that all of these calls were training for being very happy in dynamic conversation, becoming a storyteller and learning to listen well.
This week, I realised I need to get my seven-year-old in training for the moment we do buy a cordless blower to plug into the wall when I handed him my phone to make a call and he didn’t put it to his ear. Instead he looked at it, awaiting a video.
I carefully explained he needed to put it to his ear and listen, or we could lay it down and listen and talk on speaker. The reason for this call was the revival of a treasure of the 1960s New York conceptual art scene: Dial-A-Poem, a charming, free, 24/7 service that allows people in participating countries to dial a number and hear a poem.
I have been calling it once a day all week with said seven-year-old and his two-year-old sibling. The look of delight on their faces as a randomly assigned poem, read aloud by women and men from around the world, begins is a sight to behold. It’s akin to the happiness I felt as child from dialling 1-2-3 to hear the speaking clock.
Dial-A-Poem features works by Patti Smith, John Ashbery, Philip Glass and many, many more. It was created by the poet and performance artist John Giorno in 1969 with six phones and answering machines housed at the Architectural League of New York, each set up with an audio tape to play once a call landed. He changed tapes every day so there was variety, and kept adding more voices and work.
Just by dialling 0204 5388 429, I kill two birds with one stone. My children learn the joy of making a call – not sending a text or watching a video – and they have poetry and sometimes songs greeting them. This is not a children’s service though – some more sexual or dark poems have required a re-dial. But with more than half of children and young people not engaging with poetry in any way in this country, according to a survey of almost 5,000 children and young people by the National Literacy Trust, this route is ingenious.
It also means the first time either of our children has really engaged with the word “poem” at home has been something joyful and exciting that they can do together, and feel a little bit in charge of.
And by the end of this week, with a deadly attack on the synagogue I grew up attending meaning all radios and TVs are off while the children are home, Dial-A-Poem has become a whole other life line for us all.
I have the luxury of having children just young enough that they can hopefully avoid all mention or understanding that a man woke up on the morning of the holiest day in the Jewish year, armed himself and decided to try and kill as many Jews as possible – in their place of worship – simply for being Jewish.
We had just been talking about how important saying sorry and forgiveness was with our seven-year-old son – rich themes for poetry indeed, and the key themes of Yom Kippur – only hours before that man, that killer, did what he did.
Listening to people read all sorts of poetry and messages is providing a balm for both parties in our house – the saddened and enraged parents and our lovely innocent Jewish children, who have no idea how much some people will hate them. And also how much others will love them.
We are hurting, confused and worried. But perhaps poetry can take us all somewhere anew.
Reading: Superfudge by Judy Blume
I am re-reading this lovely book from my youth to our seven-year-old. I am loving it all over again, except this time I have an incredible amount of time for the knackered parents’ perspective as they muddle their way through life with a newborn and two young boys to look after. Re-reading stories from our childhood is well worth it. Try it, even if there isn’t a small child nestled into your chest while doing so.
Listening to: Magic Lessons with Elizabeth Gilbert
My fascination with creation and how people make continues apace. A new photographer friend recommended this series from a while ago, which was an accompaniment to a book by the Eat, Pray, Love author. And hearing her give advice to writers who are stuck and then glean advice from others has a charm and a usefulness.
Watching: Fleishman Is in Trouble, Disney+
I am very late to this party but having read the book and only just subscribed to Disney+ on an autumn deal, I am loving tetchy Jesse Eisenberg as a highly anxious, newly separated father of two who holds down his job as a doctor while dealing with the dawning reality his ex-wife has gone missing. It’s a witty and savage look at capitalism, family structures and sex in the tinderbox that is New York.