The “WhatsApp” mommy!
My seven year old butterfly comes back from school yesterday and says — “Mom I forgot to write my homework today and some part of English classwork is also left, would you please get it from the mommy list on whatsapp!” This is the third consecutive day that she is raising such a request. Bewildered I question her “But whats the matter why didnt you copy it in the school?” To which she responds with a long list of reasons (read accusations!) . So there are accusations on the teacher pushing the kids to finish their lunch first, the necessity of going out to play in the ground and of course the pressure in the class to copy pages and pages from the whiteboard for various subjects. The poor child projects how much pressure she is in! While coping with all this, if she missed writing some of it — its no big deal. The expression on her face tries to interject my questioning her on such a small request. And then there is that moment of truth as she goes on — “Mumma anyway you are refreshing your whatsapp and checking it every 15 minutes”! Makes me feel an OCD patient!
I pick up the phone to execute the task assigned to me and I already see similar requests from the other mommies in the fraternity requesting for home work and class works across subjects. There are discussions happening on the whatsapp group about whats going in various subjects across sections and across schools. Well the fun doesnt end there, around evening, the class teacher sends a note explaining things needed for next day’s craft workshop as if she had been waiting for the clock to struck six and give parents another jolt! Too much information overload for poor mommies to handle! A mommy friend shares how her kid reacted to her missing an important instruction as she got lost it in the sea of information that was being exchanged on the whatsapp group! How could you miss that mommy!
Top it all with the discussion happening on the whatsapp group of my pre nursery child where the mommies are discussing on the colour of T-shirt that teacher has asked their child to wear for some celebration at school — surprisingly the entire class (around 20) has been asked to wear almost different shades and the discussion is happening on the colour choice of the teacher and the associated reasoning! This is accompanied with what snack each mom would be sending on the day for sharing– pasta — red or white, sandwhich — brown/white/veg, cake — strawberry, chocolate and so on! I am baffled — the velocity of message exchange can give Schumacher some competetion!
My grumblings dont go unnoticed and guess who reacts to them? The kids granny who is quick to remark- “Makes me wonder how we managed in our times without this important “W” in our lives. Leave this, actually we brought you guys so well with our limited exposure and information”. I look at her and smile in cognizance. But then she is not hesitant to admit — “ But this new “W” has given us, the senior citizens so much to keep us busy and happy”. Well she is not incorrect in both her statements! In no time, she is back to reading and enjoying her next forwarded message from one of the so many groups she is a part of.
Today a whatsapp group exists for everything — your block, society, your school, kids school, college, hobby, school, maternity, mommies, daddies, family, cousins and so on with all the fancy names one can think of. However a look at the content being exchanged would show majority forwards circulating and eating up the bandwidth. Not to forget the attack on storage of your smartphone due to unnecessary message bombarding as well as an attack on your time and attention which you so easily loose out while going through comments, memes and forwards.
A coin has two sides, so not everything is bad! The chat platform does have its benefits and I might be sounding as a grumpy mom seeing the increasing dependency of children and parents on whatsapp as a backup platform but as they say moderation is the key. We all are so hooked to this new addiction of smartphone usage and whatsapp probably topping the list owing to its ease of usage. May be a thought before a blind forward or unnecessary exchange and just relaxing without your favorite gizmo for sometime a day would give relief not just to the mind and fingers but also save one from that recursive loop of browsing pieces of extraneous information one after the other!
Time for some whatsapp detox — after all summer vacations are on!:)
