I do sort of wish that I could teleport my kids back to the world of my youth and its ways ….. just for a fleeting visit …… for them to be able to see life exactly as it was when I was their age. Maybe it would give them an understanding of not only how very lucky we are, but also an insight and appreciation for the lifestyle that came before. They could boggle their eyes at how people lived in the ‘olden days’ when their Mum was merely a lass, and not the nagging old chook. I wouldn’t abandon them there in the dark ages of the 70s and 80s though, well not for long, but I really would like them to just have a wee little looksie.
My children have never lived in a household without a computer. Never, EVER and I actually doubt they could even for a moment imagine such a horrible thought. I, though, remember our family’s first computer. I was in Grade 10 and it was a Commodore 64 that hooked up to a TV screen and printed on a mini dot matrix printer the width of a shopping docket. I also remember our second computer, I was then in Grade 12. It was a huge clunky Apple with a green screen, weighing about 200kg and as slow as buggery, yet I believed that we were the luckiest family in all of the world. My kids today live in a house with one laptop per resident, 2 iPads, an iPod each, a couple of iPhones and heaven help us if the wireless router ever skips a beat as the world could just possibly end … it actually might you know!! Let’s not even begin to enter the realm of mobile phones which are no longer the size and weight of house bricks or video games … could today’s young person possibly be enthralled by pacman, space invaders and the bip-bip-bip-bip of that tennis game as we were in our day?
The Bradys and the Cunninghams were the hip, edgy and cool families of my time and today we have the Rafters, the Simpsons and the Pritchetts. I wonder if there are more similarities than differences?
In my time (you know, aaaaages ago) if there was a burning question to be answered parents, teachers or the Encyclopaedia Britannica provided the wisdom. Today, it’s google and it’s instant, but are we actually more knowledgeable? Who really knows, possibly we just need to accept that now there’s a different kind of smart and a changed way of thinking for the new workings of the world.
The times are changing and as they say you really can’t stop progress but maintaining pace with it all can keep someone of this vintage on their toes. Change (whether it be around technology, entertainment or culture) can be exciting … and it can also be a challenge …. but why on Earth can’t there be a pause button even occasionally? Maybe I could find some episodes of the Brady Bunch for my kids to watch … but should I be looking for those on VHS, on Blu-ray or downloaded from a torrent
What lifestyle and culture changes have you witnessed that might be near impossible for today’s generation to understand? What of your era would you expose them to if you could?
It’s Tuesday! So, again I’m linking up with Jess from Diary of a SAHM and IBOT!
Check it out!
