Who’s afraid of technology?

I AM winding up one of my regular tours of grandnanny duties in San Francisco. The demands and expectations are now more complex, having tripled with Diego, six; Emilio, two; and the year-old Juliana. Their parents, Edmund, a doctor at Kaiser, and my daughter Tanya, an office worker, know only too well that they need their jobs for their sanity. Tanya has candidly said that it is easier to work at her day job than be a full-time mother.

Thus, the family is a faithful client of the Kaiser-approved daycare center in the neighborhood, where the kids attend the all-day session. It is a pleasant venue that the parents have learned to trust over the years as it is small, with an ideal teacher-student ratio. It requires a parent to drop off the child with the “My Day” form, which records the child’s waking time, special needs for the day, etc., and which the child brings home with the teacher’s notes on the napping and feeding schedules as well as the day’s highlights. I have always been pleased to see how the family’s love for books and songs and art is nurtured there.

But what initially disconcerted me during this visit was seeing how Diego and Emilio have become so addicted to their iPads, which are hand-me-downs from their parents who obviously have found these devices effective babysitters and pacifiers. I was crushed: Where have the tykes to whom I read books from birth gone? Have books truly lost out to technology? Can these boys still be saved? What a double humiliation to advocate literacy and to fail in my own turf.

I have since taken a deep breath, calmed down, and taken note of my own addiction to devices. I read novels on my iPad and am constantly answering e-mails and messages and reading the New York Times on my iPhone. In fact, Diego once impatiently asked me in the course of our conversation if I was listening to him. “You keep looking at your phone,” he said. What kind of role model have I myself turned into?

I am always curious about what mindless, brain-numbing stuff—the admitted bias of this senior citizen—that the boys are watching on iPad. Diego is interested in the life of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) in the sewers of New York, children’s gymnastics, the games of the Golden State Warriors, kids in the kitchen, and Monster Jam events. Emilio is absorbed in the music and dancing of the Wiggles and the TMNT, and following a recent visit to Disneyland, its fireworks and parade. They often ask me to spell out words as they search for their current interests, like fish, the latest TMNT movie, and the images to use as drawing models. Just the other day, Diego the basketball fanatic asked me how old Stephen Curry was, and I said I did not know and would have to google it. He asked if Google indeed had all the answers.

All is not lost, as the ensuing days revealed. Whenever I read to Juliana, Emilio sidled over to listen or to help me read to his sister. And isn’t it literacy that drives Diego to express his feelings on his Etch-a-Sketch board, or the white paper he asks for?

Books and stories still endure and will prevail, but as in all things worthwhile, they demand time and attention. That reading ritual may not always be possible in the course of daily life in this household, so thank goodness for the enriching daycare and the required daily reading assignments for Diego in kindergarten at St. Raymond’s School, and his summer reading list of at least three books.

My brief stay this summer had these Tanya-mandated educational objectives aside from the usual household chores: Set up a summer school schedule for Diego in between his summer camps and teach him Filipino. That has been fun, with us taking the lead from an “Amazing Dad” book of blank pages that he was supposed to illustrate. He reluctantly included on the title page the names of his siblings as his assistants, and an idea of a daily schedule passed on to us by Tita Aina from FB.

“School Holiday Rules” was discussed with Diego and has been a useful guide for technology and his summer break. “You may have as much time on the iPad/TV as you like as long as all of these jobs have been done before you turn on the screen: Make your bed, have breakfast, dress up, brush your teeth, brush your hair, 20 minutes of reading, 20 minutes of writing or coloring, clean up one room (TV room/bedroom), play outside for 30 minutes, make or build something creative (Lego, craft, sand, etc.), and help someone in the family (ask if there is a job you can do, if you can’t think of something yourself).”

Admittedly, it is not an easy to-do list. Diego and I have running arguments about all the work that “the worstest teacher in the world is asking me to do,” but I am also convinced of the value of such a list because when his outbursts subside, he is eager to work and be challenged.

Neni Sta. Romana Cruz (nenisrcruz@gmail.com) is chair of the National Book Development Board, a trustee of Teach for the Philippines, and a member of the Eggie Apostol Foundation.