Yes, I'm Available: A Defense of the PDA

I'm sitting in my minivan in a long line of cars inching forward to pick up my children from school. A light blinks on my Blackberry. It's an email from L.A. I've been invited to interview the actor who played Michael Oher in "The Blind Side," but they need to know my availability ASAP.

Yes, I'm available.

I'm available to pick up my kids. I'm available to respond to an interview offer. My blackberry makes it all possible. Five years ago, I would have had to wait at my desk for that important email or risk missing it to get my kids. Fifteen years ago, I would have been tethered to my office phone as well.

Not so now.

Need a chaperone for a field trip? I'm ready. I move my writing schedule around, answer email on the fly, and am there with my daughter to learn about water snakes from the ranger at the riverfront park.

Need someone to assist at the Fun Fair? I'm your gal. I send in my article before I go, not worrying about missing feedback from my editor. I can download her comments to my blackberry in a document, respond, and turn back to passing out cotton candy in a flash.

A midday movie screening? I'm so there. If the movie goes long, I text my son that I'll be a little late and he simply hangs with his buddies a bit longer after school.

A publicist calling from L.A. doesn't know the background noise is my son's science lab. It could just as well be a film set. The actor's rep doesn't know I'm answering his email from a playground.

What they see is someone who is professional and responsive, which is what I am. What my kids see is a mom who is there much more than if I was working a traditional 9-5 in an office.

I know there are risks to the Smartphone (as Tom pointed out last week). I'm sometimes distracted from childhood prattle by an urgent email. Sometimes the email isn't so urgent and the prattle is actually important. The wisdom, I suppose, is in knowing which is the higher priority. I'm still working on that.

Still, the blackberry lets me do something my mother and grandmother couldn't. I can work and I can be a full time mom. I feel so lucky to have something I love to do professionally and to be able to be there to bandage skinned knees and hear about playground dramas.

I suspect this effect is being echoed in moms and dads across the country. My husband can come home sooner because he doesn't have to wait for that one, last, important email before he leaves. My high powered DC friend can take her daughter to violin class without losing touch with the office.

Look around. You'll see people in corners, hunched over blackberries and iPhones, tapping, tapping, tapping away. Many people see that as a shame, an epidemic of distraction, a dark new era of inability to escape the workplace. I suppose that's true. Nonetheless, we are seeing them precisely because they are not at their desk.

When I see a dad tapping on his iPhone during a school play, I see a man who is not in his office, a man who is able to attend a school play.  When I see a mom typing at a basketball game, I see a woman who has not had to leave to return a phone call. These are liberated people, freed from the office desk. We may be frustrated because they're momentarily losing focus on the kids, but the point is, they are there. Perhaps they wouldn't have been otherwise.

Even with risks, dangers, and tradeoffs, that's coming out ahead in my book.