Retro-Tech Parenting

Haven Blog | May 28, 2026

I am a technologist. I enjoy the things that computers and digital devices can do–they often seem magical and amazing! As a technologist, I have a particular vantage point to see and be very uncomfortable with what companies are doing with that technology. There are catchphrases for these patterns: AdTech, Surveillance Capitalism, Rage Bait, Engagement-Optimized Feeds, Harvesting Eyeballs. 我是一名技术人员。我享受计算机和数字设备所带来的功能——它们往往显得既神奇又美妙！作为一名技术人员，我拥有独特的视角，能够观察到科技公司正在利用这些技术做些什么，并对此感到非常不安。针对这些模式，有一些专门的术语：广告技术（AdTech）、监控资本主义、愤怒诱饵（Rage Bait）、参与度优化信息流，以及“收割眼球”。

I am also a parent. As a parent, I am scared about the prospect of letting my kids loose in a digital world so aggressively dominated by these companies and patterns. But at the same time, technology was an enriching part of my childhood and continues to be an enriching part of my life and I want to share that with them. In this post, I don’t want to spend much time discussing the ways that bad tech patterns are bad, instead I want to share some of the ways I have held on to the enriching parts of technology to share them with my kids. For many of these choices, it turns out that (surprise!) my favorite solutions involve looking back in time a couple decades. 我也是一位家长。作为家长，我害怕让孩子们进入一个被这些公司和模式强力主导的数字世界。但与此同时，科技曾是我童年生活中丰富多彩的一部分，现在也依然如此，我希望与孩子们分享这份体验。在这篇文章中，我不想花太多时间讨论糟糕的技术模式有多坏，而是想分享一些我保留科技中积极部分并与孩子们分享的方法。对于其中许多选择，结果（令人惊讶的是！）我最喜欢的解决方案往往是回顾几十年前的时光。

Physical Media

实体媒介

I’m starting to fall in love with CDs again. When I was young, music came on CDs. This was a time before MP3s and before Spotify. This was a time when going to summer camp, I would pick which half-dozen CDs I wanted to bring with on the trip. This was a time of wired ear-bud headphones, sitting in school sharing a song with someone by giving them one of the two ear buds and listening side-by-side. This was a time of [Parental Advisory] labels on CDs that had objectionable language. This was a time of tiny LCD screens on portable CD players that only displayed the track number, so I sometimes knew my favorite song on a CD by number instead of by name. 我开始重新爱上 CD。我年轻的时候，音乐是通过 CD 传播的。那是在 MP3 和 Spotify 出现之前的时代。那时去夏令营，我会挑选半打想带在路上的 CD。那是带线耳机的时代，坐在学校里，把其中一个耳塞分给别人，两人并排听着同一首歌。那是 CD 上贴着“家长指导”（Parental Advisory）标签以警示不当语言的时代。那是便携式 CD 机上只有微小 LCD 屏幕、只能显示曲目编号的时代，所以我有时是通过编号而不是歌名来记住我最喜欢的歌。

I bought a mini CD boom box for the house. My oldest loves bringing it around to different rooms, plugging it in, and putting in a CD. I bought her the K-Pop Demon Hunters CD for her birthday. The local public library has CDs! CDs are awesome. 我为家里买了一台迷你 CD 音响。我的大女儿喜欢把它带到不同的房间，插上电源，放进一张 CD。我给她买了《K-Pop Demon Hunters》的 CD 作为生日礼物。当地的公共图书馆也有 CD！CD 真棒。

Speaking of the public library, they also have DVDs and BluRays. I remember the whole ritual of going to Blockbuster Video with my Dad to pick out a movie for family movie night. Usually he would let my sister and me pick out a few extras that we wanted to watch. That’s how I got familiar with the Three Stooges, even though it was before my time. The magic of having something to hold onto that you can bring home and put in the player next to the TV, and there is your movie! As a parent one of the big wins with physical media is I know exactly what my kids have available to experience. If they aren’t ready for something, it doesn’t come home with us. The kids can be much more independent about watching and listening because there is no adversary inside the device they are using. Kids love that independence. 说到公共图书馆，他们还有 DVD 和蓝光光碟。我记得小时候和爸爸去百视达（Blockbuster Video）租碟，为家庭电影之夜挑选电影的仪式感。通常他会让我们姐妹俩多选几部想看的电影。我就是这样熟悉了“三个臭皮匠”（Three Stooges），尽管那是在我出生之前的作品。那种手里拿着实物，带回家放进电视机旁的播放器，电影就开始播放的魔力！作为家长，实体媒介的一大优势在于，我能确切地知道孩子们接触到了什么。如果他们还没准备好接触某些内容，我们就不会把它带回家。孩子们在观看和聆听时可以更加独立，因为他们使用的设备里没有“对手”（指算法或广告）。孩子们热爱这种独立性。

Landline Telephones

固定电话

I hooked up a wired, physical telephone next to the kitchen in our house. I’m using a cheap VoIP provider with an analogue telephone adapter, but there’s a company called Tin Can that makes this really easy (no affiliation). The telephone network has retained backward compatibility as everyone moved to smartphones, so grandparents, neighbors, aunts and uncles, are all now accessible to the kids. Even better, these digitally-managed phones have excellent configuration options. I’ve whitelisted all the friends and family who get to call us, and the phone automatically blocks calls from dinner time to morning. 我在家里的厨房旁安装了一部有线的实体电话。我使用了一个廉价的 VoIP 服务商配合模拟电话适配器，不过有一家叫 Tin Can 的公司让这个过程变得非常简单（我与该公司无任何关联）。随着大家转向智能手机，电话网络保留了向后兼容性，因此祖父母、邻居、叔叔阿姨现在都可以通过电话联系到孩子们。更好的是，这些数字化管理的电话拥有出色的配置选项。我将所有可以拨打我们电话的亲友列入了白名单，电话还会自动拦截从晚餐时间到次日清晨的所有来电。

My kids will spontaneously call up their grandparents to ask if they can go over to play, and have memorized my phone number because they like to prank call me when I’m also in the kitchen. When I was a kid, the telephone was my bridge to friends and setting up my own playdates. It was “do you want to come over to my house?” instead of “Dad! Can you set up a playdate with so-and-so?” There is still a bit of a network effect until other families get hooked up with their own house phones, but I’m really excited about it. Kids really love that independence. 我的孩子们会主动给祖父母打电话问能不能去他们家玩，而且他们记住了我的电话号码，因为他们喜欢在我也在厨房时给我打恶作剧电话。我小时候，电话是我与朋友联系、安排玩耍的桥梁。那时是直接问“你想来我家玩吗？”，而不是“爸爸！你能帮我约某某某出来玩吗？”。虽然在其他家庭也装上座机之前，网络效应还比较有限，但我对此感到非常兴奋。孩子们真的很喜欢这种独立性。

The Family Computer

家庭电脑

I remember having friends over and going to friends’ houses and one of our favorite things to do was play computer games. This was the era of Commander Keen and Prince of Persia. We would sit at the family computer, side-by-side, taking turns, discussing strategy. I definitely have games I want to share with my kids, but the internet is also not something I trust. I bought a used tower PC from Ebay and set it up next to the kitchen. Each kid has their own login and their own games or activities they like to explore. 我记得小时候邀请朋友来家里，或者去朋友家玩，我们最喜欢做的事情之一就是玩电脑游戏。那是《指挥官基恩》（Commander Keen）和《波斯王子》（Prince of Persia）的时代。我们会坐在家庭电脑前，并排坐着，轮流操作，讨论策略。我确实有一些想和孩子们分享的游戏，但我并不信任互联网。我从 eBay 上买了一台二手的塔式电脑，把它放在厨房旁边。每个孩子都有自己的登录账号，以及他们喜欢探索的游戏或活动。

I also set up a pi-hole for our home network and configured the family computer to use the pi-hole for DNS. Just like the phone, I’ve whitelisted every domain that they can visit. For example: they get access to Wikipedia, but not Google. They get access to Minecraft, but we don’t play on public servers. No Youtube or Spotify, but I’ve curated some sites about how to solve a Rubik’s cube, or different ways to tie your shoes. I showed my older kid that she could rip a CD onto the computer, and listen to it there. For now she’s just excited that she has yet another place she can listen to her favorite K-Pop Demon Hunters song, but maybe this is the start of building up her own music collection as I’ve done over the decades. Kids love being able to use a computer on their own! 我还为我们的家庭网络设置了 Pi-hole，并将家庭电脑配置为使用 Pi-hole 进行 DNS 解析。就像电话一样，我将他们可以访问的每一个域名都列入了白名单。例如：他们可以访问维基百科，但不能访问谷歌。他们可以玩《我的世界》（Minecraft），但我们不在公共服务器上玩。没有 YouTube 或 Spotify，但我精选了一些关于如何还原魔方或不同系鞋带方法的网站。我向大女儿展示了她可以将 CD 抓轨到电脑上，并在那里听歌。目前她只是因为多了一个可以听她最爱的《K-Pop Demon Hunters》歌曲的地方而感到兴奋，但这也许是她开始建立自己音乐收藏的开端，就像我几十年来所做的那样。孩子们喜欢能够独立使用电脑的感觉！

I opened by calling myself a technologist. I recognize that a lot of the tools I’ve described above aren’t as accessible to less-technical parents, but the core philosophy is definitely still accessible. The dystopian parts of modern technology came to dominate because they are very convenient–but that convenience comes at a cost. Especially when kids are involved, it can be really rewarding to refuse paying that cost and sometimes even look to the past for inspiration. 我在开头称自己为技术人员。我承认，我上面描述的许多工具对于非技术背景的家长来说可能不太容易上手，但其核心理念绝对是通用的。现代科技中反乌托邦的部分之所以占据主导地位，是因为它们非常方便——但这种方便是有代价的。特别是在涉及孩子时，拒绝支付这种代价，甚至有时从过去寻找灵感，往往会带来意想不到的收获。