The Winter Of Our Disconnect

At night at my home, you can see little lights and you can hear a quiet hum. It is my family’s daytime tools charging overnight. There are white cords collecting dust in the corners. It seemed to happen so quickly; I don’t remember making a conscious decision to live this way. Look, I know this is not a unique observation: there are trillions of papers to be read on this exact topic. For goodness sake, one can Google the topic!

However, feminist author and columnist Dr. Susan Maushart, a mother of three teenagers, does something more than comment in her fourth book, The Winter of Our Disconnect. Maushart switches off her home and writes about it – longhand, in her diary. In this, I mean she pulls the plug on all her and her kids’ daytime tools for six months. No electronic media: no telephone, no email, no television, no iPods.

This book is not a rant against one generation’s lifestyle to another, younger, generation. Maushart thought all their lifestyles needed a shake-up. She couldn’t afford to take her kids away from their gadgets, so she took the gadgets away. This is what she finds: her children thrive. Their marks at school increase, their friendships increase, they eat meals together, they sleep more, they read books – for goodness sake – they play Monopoly together! Maushart backs up her findings with case studies of research results. I’m interested in this. Already my kids seem dependent on quick dissemination of information – and they’re not even teenagers yet.

What is refreshing is that Maushart has not written a didactic book and nor does she believe we should shift direction. Rather, The Winter of Our Disconnect is a reminder of the impact of modern media on family life. (Like motherhood, it seems a balancing act is needed.) Again, Maushart (think of her feminist classic Wifework) has written a book that articulates the concerns that have been humming in the background of my home.