“I didn’t have a smartphone.”
“There was no such thing as Snap Chat, Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr.”
“Netflix didn’t exist.”
“We used typewriters, and here’s a shocker: pen and paper.”
“We did math without calculators.”
I can’t believe I stooped that low to actually bring out the hackneyed “When I Was You Age” one liner to my kids. Goodness, my grandparents don’t even do that (but if they did I truly WOULD have listened because I know it would be good stuff).
Anyway… Do you know how irrelevant my past is to my 12 year old daughter in terms of using typewriters and eating kale for breakfast? It only shows her how old I really am. It used to bug the crud out of me when adults would detail walking 2 miles in the snow to school. Now, in my own way, I’m doing the same thing.
News flash. My kids don’t care. My childhood, in terms of what I had and didn’t have, has no bearing on their life at the present.
My son seems to think I lived prior to modern conveniences. He loves to go to antique stores and pick out items such as a butter churner only to ask, “Mom, is this what you used when you were a girl?” Or perhaps a lantern. “Mom, since electricity wasn’t available when you were a girl, is this what you would use at night so you could see the pathway out to the barn?” Nice.
Hey, just because my family had a rotary phone with a 50 foot curly cord, a black and white TV and a 1979 Firebird doesn’t mean I’m old. Yeah, OK, whatever.
Some of the stories of my youth the kids really DO like and ask me to tell them again and again which really isn’t a good thing in my opinion.
Like when I snapped a boy’s underwear in 3rd grade on a dare or kicked a boy in the shin for teasing me or making a football touchdown in 4th grade with a team of boys, or knowing every word by heart to the Grease soundtrack, or cheating on my Bible memory verse tests. Oh and then there was the throwing of my poopy underwear in the creek because I was afraid to tell my mom I had diarrhea. Yes, this really happened. Yes, I was very young. Yes, I needed therapy, and yes, I am really sharing this.
But, honestly it’s the real stuff my kids dig. Or what I like to refer to as “what never to do.”
Yesterday I heard my daughter singing in the shower. Yep, you guessed it. Word for word. The Grease soundtrack complete with background vocals.
Is it wrong I found myself singing along with her?
Jessica Griffin
http://travelingmercies-jessica.blogspot.com
