Drug-free Childbirth and Social Media

I gave birth to my youngest daughter stone cold “sober,” so to speak—without pain medication, not even an aspirin. I don’t recommend this; it was simply something I wanted to do. It was important to me because I was 37 and I’d had several miscarriages and I knew this was the last time I’d give birth. I wanted to know every moment of it.

I was thinking about this because yesterday was said daughter’s fifteenth birthday, and I took her and four of her friends out to dinner to celebrate. She’s a delight and she’s chosen her friends well; they’re all smart, thoughtful, funny, intriguing, hardworking young women. Yet throughout the evening they all were involved with their phones—texting, tweeting, Facebooking, tumblring—in what has become, really, the standard for social interaction these days. They spent as least as much time interacting with their phones as they did with each other. It made me sad.

During the four years it took me to research and write this novel about living on a remote island, it’s become something of a family joke that I may actually move us all to such a place. I’ll find one of my daughters stretched out on the couch watching “The Kardashians” or still awake at one a.m. on a school night texting in bed, and I’ll say, “That’s it! We’re moving to THE ISLAND.”

Living in a remote, less-plugged-in place (I’m not sure there’s anyplace that’s truly unplugged any more) appeals to me for the same reason drug-free childbirth appealed to me. When you give birth without drugs, there’s no way to pay attention to anything but your body and what it’s doing, and I mean full attention. And I’d like to pay full attention to my life—something I often don’t do because I’m blogging ☺ or texting or facebooking or driving or multi-tasking. It’s hard to give birth without drugs; it hurts. But, for me at least, it was also glorious. I wonder if a less-plugged-in life might feel much the same.