Black Box Warning

Carefully opening the box, I began unfolding a wordy paper insert and pouring over the verbiage.

“Warning, this drug has been known to cause (blah blah blah) and should be used with extreme caution, especially when given alongside (xyz medication) or in the presence of (basically every medical condition ever).”

As a very new, young (aka green) nurse I felt compelled to ask questions. What I didn’t expect was the backlash I’d receive for inquiring. I soon learned that according to my coworkers charged with administering the substance, those inserts weren’t actually for reading, nor should I have bothered with it. “Just throw that out,” one seasoned practitioner told me, “we’ve been using that medication for decades.”

I heard the advice yet treaded lightly, unable to ignore the sinking pit in my abdomen. This event was the catalyst to my research habit. Call me whatever you want, but I get a major satisfactory feeling from new information. I crave it like an expectant mom craves donuts. I almost need it; as an addict needs their choice crutch, and it has never served me wrong. You can’t know what you don’t know right?

Just a few weeks later, I was assigned a young psych patient who was on a laundry list of pharmaceuticals. This man had a poor appetite (gee wonder why), so I was instructed to give him that dreadful medication with the thick, three-page warning booklet I was supposed to overlook. I couldn’t do it. I looked at his small frame and pitifully glazed-over look and just thought how wrong it was to ignore everything I’d read (and subsequently researched) about this chemical. Despite being made fun of behind my back and to my face, I held my ground. I tried talking to him, encouraging him to eat and he would not.

The next morning I’d been sent to a different room, and yesterday’s patient was under the “care” of a more senior provider. As I watched him bang his head against the glass, I wondered if any of those meds he was currently on could be causing his behavior. On lunch break I poured over more inserts and my pharmacology textbooks. Sure as sunlight, the meds were directly related to the symptoms he’d been displaying. I felt as though I’d found the hidden treasure of truth and wanted to scream it down the corridors. Except as I rounded the corner back to my post, I noticed a large crowd around his room. There were machines beeping, people nearly yelling over each other with frantic faces and busy hands. I struggled to peek in and through that thick glass, I noticed the man I’d taken care of all week lying on the ground.

I could tell then it wasn’t good news. I tried to get closer but the more experienced folks seemed to know what they were doing. The CPR continued, and after what felt like an eternity, they got a pulse. He sat in the bed for weeks in a coma, while they waited for brain activity to resume. As I moved from one patient to the next, he remained basically lifeless in that cell. Until one day, he passed.

Why do I pen these awful things? Well, because after twenty years I finally have the strength and freedom to share what I’ve witnessed. Hopefully by opening up, others can understand why I research things to the nines, ask courageous questions and challenge the narrative of the norm.

His 19 short years ended after he was injected with that poison. Yes, the same one I refused to give him. The “medication” that was safe enough to ignore the BlackBox Warning it rode along with. How senseless, I thought. Why would a whole community of educated people blatantly ignore an empirical plea to take extreme caution? This impacted my whole career, my personal life, and still occasionally haunts me today. Everything we do in this life has a consequence. Decisions we make today impact our tomorrows forever. We seek wisdom by running to “google” everything right? We binge watch videos on how to, what to and who to believe. Critical thinking has been all but replaced by instant internet. Over these two decades, my life has come full circle and a couple of years ago I stepped out of the medical field with a newfound sense of purpose. I am a daughter of the King, a wife, and an “influencer” to the four most easily influenced (read: impressionable) humans on this planet, my children. Did you know that the human capacity to learn is greatest in the first 5-7 years of life? And curiouser still is the fact that human brains develop most rapidly from the last few weeks in the womb until somewhere around that baby’s second birthday?

So would you find it strange that even the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) has recommended strictly limiting or totally eliminating screens until age 2? As autism, ADD, ADHD, behavioral and physical issues have skyrocketed in children over the past 15 years, they still continue to administer this very ironic warning. Despite their obvious issues and other unfounded “pearls of wisdom,” this is actually the one ball the AAP hit out of the park.

I birthed my first three children in a three year time frame. To say it was a season of chaos is the understatement of this century. Because I worked 40-50 hours a week, I would oftentimes put a “learning show” on so that I could spend time in the kitchen making dinner while zoning out a bit mentally, maybe watching something on my phone or scrolling on social; too tired to “deal.” This soon became a habit and the television became a proverbial pacifier; clicked on when the kids were sick, when I was tired or I’d “had enough,” when the baby was fussy and the other two wanted to play outside, the times I “had to” do something “important” on my phone so I set them in front of their own screen.

I knew better. I’d done the research. I had read the warning about the big black box hanging above our mantle. I understood the short and long-term consequences of screen time under age two, and too much television for folks of any age. When I grabbed that remote, I felt a slight call to throw it I the trash more times than not. But by then, it’d become like a free babysitter and we couldn’t imagine going without.

Just like I knew about that Black Box medication all those years ago, I knew the technology-induced side effects for the pediatric population. Granted the TVs and other screens don’t come with a blatantly clear warning paper but the data is out there and common sense was all but screaming at me. For years, we convinced ourselves that because we didn’t have cable, we could control what they were watching. We believed the lie that our kids didn’t watch nearly as much as “other kids.” YouTube became a staple in our home. We even let other apps sneak onto our smart tv, and before we knew it, the kids had a smorgasbord of coma-inducing shows to choose from. You know the ones; the episodes that the kids are so glued to, you know with snacks in their lap you have at least thirty eight minutes before they blink, let alone actually need something from you.

Fast forward to 2021, when our lives changed drastically. We finally left suburbia and purchased 10 acres. While I’d been making huge attempts to limit the kids (and my own) screen time, I’d kept failing. It always snuck back in like a white elephant gift no one asked for. My attempts seemed futile until the move. Aside from simultaneously hanging up my career, raising four children seven and under, and leaving the house we’d been in for so long, we learned where our new home would be. The 480sq ft dilapidated mobile on our new land became our temporary place of residence, for 18 long months. It was so tiny and so old that we couldn’t hang a tv, so it went into storage along with 95% of the belongings we needed. For the first few weeks we didn’t yet have wifi so of course we found a source in my phone- streaming NumberBlocks for whoever wanted to watch. The instant internet kept them entertained while I spent time unpacking (read playing real-life Tetris). Shortly after, I realized how much I was getting done myself while they had a show on my phone. I wasn’t distracted by it and they were otherwise occupied. The installation of wi-fi happened and before we knew it, the desktop and our laptop were back in action. That left mommy back on her phone while they were on another screen. This continued for several months and I knew it wasn’t good. I started turning our router off, thinking if we didn’t have wifi we couldn’t watch shows. Enter DVDs- before we knew it we had binge-watched 4 seasons of Little House and acquired a dozen new “family” movies.

This past December 2022, someone hacked into our bank account and used my information to transfer our wifi to their place of residence. How CenturyLink let them do that, I’ll never understand. But rather than get too upset about it, I felt led to let the no wifi slide for a while. I introduced more handicrafts to my kids. They’re outdoor enthusiasts already but I just spent even more time outside with them. We dusted off our board games that’d been stowed away. After three days, they had only asked for a show once. I told them the wifi was broken and they asked to watch a movie. Lucky for me we don’t have a DVD player for this humongous TV, so that wasn’t an option.

I decided also, to rip the bandaid off for the final time and delete the instant internet from my own screen… I made my phone a “dumb phone” for good. A couple weeks into the internet and TV- free life, I noticed a huge change in all of us. I was more patient than ever, less forgetful and more motivated to knock out my to-do list. Our four children and I are reading so many books. I find myself sitting down on the floor to play alongside them, distracted by nothing. Because they aren’t overstimulated by the dopamine, they have had way less meltdowns and hard days. Their imaginations are running wild! I learn so much about my older two as they’ve noticed mom doesn’t have a phone in her hand anymore and can fully listen as they excitedly share their stories. I lay belly-down in our daughter’s room and color with her, noticing how she hums differently if my crayon is moving, too. Our two-year-old is sleeping exponentially better. He isn’t as overtired or overstimulated. They all entertain themselves and play so well together. I feel myself thanking the Lord for these unexpected turns of life events. My own self-control wasn’t strong enough to do what I’d felt called to do for years, so I believe He helped me do it. It’s been over thirty days and we will never go back. In fact, I ordered a gorgeous vintage canvas to hang above our mantel, completely covering that big black rectangle. A dear friend of mine helped me hang it despite my borderline crazy self! It’s been really fun to watch people internally squirm as they walk in and all too quickly notice. “Oh that’s a pretty picture” they say, as their eyebrows start to furrow and their heads turn with confusion, “but where’s your television?”

“It’s under there, we don’t use it anymore,” I share. While I’ve had varying responses from those close to me, I know that the ones that matter most are my children. Boy, have we noticed a huge difference. There’s more family time, more snuggles, less sibling bickering, less back-talking. There is overall more room to sprinkle in Bible time, play time and lesson time. It’s been wonderful to watch unfold. Don’t be fooled, it hasn’t been easy at all times- I’ve fought temptation and they’ve become “bored” here and there. But it’s like any other addiction; sometimes the best way to end it is to eliminate the substance altogether. Get it out of your home, out of your life and out of view so the temptation is lessened. I do want to mention that this is by far a very personal choice and I realize it may not be everyone’s cup of tea to live without screens. But I felt convinced that the television was persuading my kids, changing their behavior and influencing their decisions. Plus it allowed me way too much time on my own device. The television was a tool for us and maybe even a coping mechanism. The Black Box wasn’t actually serving us though, we were serving it. I read the data on it, yet ignored it still. Let this serve as the “insert” for screens, televisions and game consoles everywhere- a black box warning exists for this device. Side effects include tantrums, less time outside, decreased ability to focus, hormonal disruption, hyperstimulation and the worst of all- decreased amounts of quality family time with your young children, of which you’ll never get back. I wish I’d read this in 2013 when we welcomed our first child. But honestly, I’ve always had to learn my lessons the hard way in life. This is no exception. If screens seem to be serving you, and you’re able to be disciplined in your time spent, I’m truly glad for you that it’s working out! But if you’re like me and find yourselves serving screens, fighting addiction and half-doing life, rid the distractions for thirty days and see what happens. Worse case, you can unbury that remote and go back to life as you now know it. But what if you too, notice huge improvements in your family? Worth it, right?

In the words of one of our all time favorite songs… “Blow up your TV, throw away the paper, go to the country, build you a home. Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches. Try and find Jesus, all on your own".”