As I learned on his birthday, my son had decided three things about smartphones. 1. They’re infantilizing, a set of digital apron strings meant to attach you to your mother. (He was onto something there.) 2. They compromise a boy’s resourcefulness because kids come to rely on the GPS instead of learning Scout skills. 3. They make people trivial. This final observation bugs me the most, because he still expresses it whenever he sees me jabbing at my own device: “Texty texty! Emoji emoji!” And when I play my word games, he shouts, “GAMER!” That hurts. In short, my son says, he doesn’t want a phone because he wants to be free.
She doesn’t like her picture taken and posted to Instagram. When I’ve done it, I say it’s because I’m just proud of them and want to show them off. They both say that they never signed a waiver to let their likenesses be used for my promotional purposes.
I have no words. How these kids managed to sprout from the genes of this fucking moron, I do not know. Must have had a smart dad/sperm donor, to say the least.
Kids are naturally contrarian to their parents, especially at that age. Especially the opposite gender kid/parent. It takes considerable amounts of time doting and willful damaging their mind to create the codepenent, mini-clone version you sometimes see.
So this is probably more common than you'd think, it just doesn't happen to journalists who expose it for our amusement.
Interesting how she doesn't even consider the idea that sick fucks like the ones Chris Hansen and Alex Rosen bust could possibly try to prey on those poor kids thanks to her publicizing every little part of their lives.
Or that something online they find embarrassing may either cost them networking opportunities or make them the target of bullying from any peers who may see it.
I hate when some parents shut down very valid concerns like those and make it all about their ego trips.
So the phone sits among my nightgowns, essentially deceased. I only recently acknowledged that it will never be what a phone should be—someone’s steadfast companion, a guilty pleasure, a fetish object alive with the hallucinatory wonders of the entire angelic and demonic internet.
What happened is my son rejected my gift. He simply said no to the present I’d bought and wrapped for him. He didn’t want a phone. He really didn’t want a phone. As I protested that he need use it only for calls and texts, he dug in, and became emotional. Please don’t make me get a phone. So I tucked the iPhone 4 in my drawer, assuming he’d come around. Three years later, he still hasn’t.
Yeah, that's about the only reasonable reaction. This falls squarely in "you think you hate journalists enough, but you don't" for me. Between the "look at me, I'm a nerd too!" begging, the narcissism oozing from every word, the fact that there's a number of super suspicious things (did you really have a dial-up connection to Dartmouth in 1978? Did you really think "Oh, I'm lost so I'll quote Tolkien to my son"? and so on), and basically ignoring the wishes of her kids, this woman is quite the piece of work.
They both say that they never signed a waiver to let their likenesses be used for my promotional purposes.
And they didn't. So stop posting photos of them online! Or, even better, just listen to them when they tell you things, rather than calling their opinions a "dangerous insurgency"
And bragging about forcing your kids to wear Google Glass....
You need help, lady. A LOT of help. Starting about 15 years ago.
I don't understand why this person has a wikipedia page.
Heffernan began her career as a fact checker with The New Yorker magazine.
Not a real job.
Heffernan became a national correspondent for Yahoo News
lmao
maintains an active Tumblr account
RIP son
Heffernan published an article entitled "Why I'm a creationist,"
Based?
saying she was "considerably less amused and moved by the character-free Big Bang story ("something exploded") than by the twisted and picturesque misadventures of Eve and Adam."
No, just a stupid woman.
Heffernan published an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times entitled "What can you do about the Trumpites next door?" in which she wondered, self-critically, how to respond to kindness from rightwing neighbors
I didn't actually read the Trump neighbour article, but from comments I saw on Reddit, it is apparently equally as unhinged as this deranged rant about her smartphone-phobic son, lol...
Apparently she has been "online" since 1979 (!), which is fucking ludicrous for a "normie"...
But she also appears to have had the kid in question when she was ~ 39, so probably lucky he turned out as based as he did (and not with Down's or similar), all things considered...
Imagine your kid parenting himself better than you are.
I have no words. How these kids managed to sprout from the genes of this fucking moron, I do not know. Must have had a smart dad/sperm donor, to say the least.
No wonder he didn't stick around.
Kids are naturally contrarian to their parents, especially at that age. Especially the opposite gender kid/parent. It takes considerable amounts of time doting and willful damaging their mind to create the codepenent, mini-clone version you sometimes see.
So this is probably more common than you'd think, it just doesn't happen to journalists who expose it for our amusement.
Regression to the mean can be both a blessing or a curse.
Interesting how she doesn't even consider the idea that sick fucks like the ones Chris Hansen and Alex Rosen bust could possibly try to prey on those poor kids thanks to her publicizing every little part of their lives.
Or that something online they find embarrassing may either cost them networking opportunities or make them the target of bullying from any peers who may see it.
I hate when some parents shut down very valid concerns like those and make it all about their ego trips.
no kids at that age would say that. this woman either made this up or this is a poorly-communicated joke.
I suspect this entire article is meant to be satire and everybody here took the bait.
What. The. Fuck.
Yeah, that's about the only reasonable reaction. This falls squarely in "you think you hate journalists enough, but you don't" for me. Between the "look at me, I'm a nerd too!" begging, the narcissism oozing from every word, the fact that there's a number of super suspicious things (did you really have a dial-up connection to Dartmouth in 1978? Did you really think "Oh, I'm lost so I'll quote Tolkien to my son"? and so on), and basically ignoring the wishes of her kids, this woman is quite the piece of work.
And they didn't. So stop posting photos of them online! Or, even better, just listen to them when they tell you things, rather than calling their opinions a "dangerous insurgency"
And bragging about forcing your kids to wear Google Glass....
You need help, lady. A LOT of help. Starting about 15 years ago.
This person is addicted to pornography or something worse.
Social media.
ie porn for women
100% true
Literal woman moment and she's still too narcissistic to pick up on it.
This is the author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Heffernan
Hahahahahahahaha. Single mother. Because of course she is...
I don't understand why this person has a wikipedia page.
Not a real job.
lmao
RIP son
Based?
No, just a stupid woman.
👌
I didn't actually read the Trump neighbour article, but from comments I saw on Reddit, it is apparently equally as unhinged as this deranged rant about her smartphone-phobic son, lol...
Apparently she has been "online" since 1979 (!), which is fucking ludicrous for a "normie"...
But she also appears to have had the kid in question when she was ~ 39, so probably lucky he turned out as based as he did (and not with Down's or similar), all things considered...
Small blessings that the son has a good head on his shoulders in spite of his mom.
🎵🎶You let him hit it raw
Didn't have second thoughts 🎵🎶
3 or 4 times I had to stop and ask myself if this was clever satire or just flat out made up.
WTF.
Wow this bitch is old. She was 39yo when her son was born! (2019 - 11 - 1969).
That kid is lucky not to have been born a downie.
I wish I had been as militantly antiphone when I was that kids age. Would have saved me a lot of trouble.