Phone Free Weekend

My friend recently told me about their family’s phone free weekend. They dumped their phone in a box, left it in the laundry room and spent the weekend disconnected.

She told me she looked her kids in the eyes more, touched them more, remembered more, and felt like the weekend was longer than she had experienced in a long time.

What more did I need to hear to try this myself?

I came home from the office on Friday, waited until the girls walked in the door and powered down my device. It took a minute as I didn’t even remember how to turn the damn thing off. Isn’t that insane?! Thanks to Airplane mode, even flying high over the earth, I’m still attached to this 3x5 rectangle.

I set it face down on my dresser. I stepped back and looked at it, an uncomfortable and embarrassing ache flowing through me.

I grabbed the phone and stuffed it into my underwear drawer, out of sight.

Friday night was easy. Dinner dragged into bedtime. Bedtime meant I fell asleep in Caroline’s bed until I was shaken awake by Clayton. Being shaken awake meant I scraped my contacts from my eyeballs and quickly fell into my own bed in one fluid motion.

Saturday was different. I found myself reaching into my pockets, feeling a phantom buzz. I subconsciously opened my dresser drawer, picked up the phone, and on auto pilot double tapped the black screen expecting it to light up. I shoved it back in the drawer when I realized what I had just done. We went to the Library and I left my phone behind, unsure of the last time I’d ever left the house without it. Instead of popping on a Podcast for the girls, we talked about places our friends lived. Instead of making my grocery list while they played in the kids area to maximize my time, I patiently walked up and down the aisles of children’s books as they pulled off each and every book from the shelf as I restocked behind them.

Sunday, I worried I wouldn’t remember the weekend because I didn’t take any photos and the story in my head is if I don’t take photos or videos of them each waking moment I’m going to forget what their voice sounded like or what they wore to school on that random Tuesday. I know. I know. But by Sunday night, I felt calm, more relaxed. I hadn’t refreshed Slack or my work email subconsciously, hadn’t done the series of subconscious scrolling between Snapchat and Twitter and Substack.

When I looked back at the weekend I realized I actually looked my husband in the eyes, asked him questions I had forgotten, like what is your favorite fast food? How old do you think Patrick Mahomes is? He has three kids? How many nannies do you think they have?! Instead of keeping the questions to myself and locking eyes with my screen, I looked at my husband next to me on the brown couch and we talked about them.

So sure, I missed a few photos I wanted to take, but when I think back, I can picture their cold tiny pink noses from biking in 30 degree temperatures. I think I'd prefer it that way, a vision always with me.

Will I do it again? Probably.

Did I power that bad boy on Monday morning and find myself ignoring the girl's pleas for more toast? Absolutely.