Last winter found me at the airport with my two young sons, on our way to Palm Desert. The security guard smiled at my excited boys and informed them that the airline we were flying on had the Teletoon channel, as well as Treehouse.

The boys were thrilled and full of anticipation as we boarded the flight, only to find that the plane we were on was new and unequipped with personal television sets. The tragedy! The horror! We were seated near the front of the plane, and every single passenger – especially those travelling with children – gasped as they boarded. No television! How ever will we survive the three hour flight?

Later, I was relating this tale of woe to a girlfriend, who asked if I had remembered to bring my children’s handheld gaming devices for the flight, and the shock on her face when I told her that we do not have handheld gaming devices was worth the technologically-challenged trip.

When I was a child, every vacation was marked by a ten hour car trip across the prairies to visit my grandparents. Ten hours in the family sedan, with three children and a dog in the back, our feet resting on schoolbags full of items that were intended to keep us busy throughout the long, boring drive. The highlights of the drive would be when we stopped for gas and when my mother handed out Life Savers. Except for my Walkman that was loaded with my homemade mixed tapes, we had no technological gadgets to keep us occupied.

When I witnessed the panic on passengers’ faces on that television-less flight, I wondered if we have become too accustomed to technology. Have we reached the point where three hours without a television is an unspeakable catastrophe? The hours in flight, including the one hour spent sitting on the tarmac waiting for tardy passengers, were spent in a wholesome and organic way: reading books, talking about our trip, colouring, playing with small toys and compulsive snacking.

The flight passed fairly quickly and easily, and I disembarked feeling like a Superior Mother, one who could Rise to the Occasion, one who could Occupy Her Children in the Face of Technology-Free Adversity.

That is not to say that I was not relieved, on the homeward trip, to find that the plane we boarded was equipped with personal television sets and the Teletoon channel.