Its funny how nowadays even children take technology for granted. Just a few days ago I was having lunch with some friends, who have 3 small children between the ages of 5 and 11 years old. The youngest was happily playing way on DoodleJump on her mum's iPhone while another was competing at Angry Birds on her dad's and the third had stolen mine to look up how big the biggest ever rabbit in the world was on Wikipedia. I do remember having a Nintendo Donkey Kong Game that was the size of an encyclopaedia and had images that looked like they'd been created using an Etch-a-Sketch, which I am sure kept me amused for about 10 minutes and at the time was the absolute latest in technology. However, imagine as a kid having been able to press a screen and get virtually any kind of game, watch films, TV, message your friends in real-time, even video conference with them! I remember having to go to the phone box to call my dad when I needed a lift home or to arrange to meet up with friends. In fact, come to think of it, how on earth do kids get away with telling their parents they are at their friend's house when really they are holed up in a dungeon of a nightclub knocking back Aftershocks and headbanging in a mosh-pit...? The latest iPhone allows your parents to call you and see exactly where you are! Try convincing your mum that the throngs of raving gurners behind you are just iPhone 'wallpaper' and that your pupils only look like that because you're using one of those programs that puts special effects on your face......
It reminds me of a time when I got my friend's older brother (older being the operative word - he was about 15 and we were about 13) to call my dad, masquerading as my friend's dad to ask if I could stay over for a sleepover (in reality the parents had gone on holiday and the house was full of 15-year-old boys, Diamond White and an impending game of Spin the Bottle). How naive to think that my dad would believe the pubescent cracking voice on the other end of the line was indeed a 40 year old man. Needless to say that he didn't and I was ordered home promptly and grounded for a week (again).
But it does strike me as incredibly difficult nowadays for kids to get away with the things we used to manage 20 years ago. Which is probably a good thing in many ways, but kind of sad in others. After all, much of life's learnings come from finding out the hard way, and it seems that 'the hard way' will soon be a thing of the past for many kids of today. I can definitely look back now and say my mum and dad were always right, but I only know that because I did so many things they told me not to do, without their knowledge and experienced first hand that it may not have been the best idea to, for example, have a bolt put through my tongue / carve a boy's name into my arm with a compass / dance half naked on a bar being set alight with flaming Sambuca by loin-cloth clad men weilding flame throwers in Lanzarote resulting in a fall that tore every ligament in my knee and dislocated my shoulder rendering me unconscious in the back of an ambulance with two huge paramedics punching my shoulder back into it's socket...... I only know these things because I lived them. And it's only now that I am of child-bearing age and mentality that it makes me feel slightly sick at how stressful it must be for parents to have to set their offspring free into a world where scary things can happen....even at their own hands! Though this does make me glad in some ways that I live in Switzerland, as despite badness and temptation being everywhere, there seems to be very little in this part of the world! Even the local 'thugs' apologise when they bump into you, and the closest I've seen to a gangster is someone with their baseball cap on sideways and a can of Red Bull in their hand. A far cry from the streets of Streatham...!
I am also finding it increasingly disconcerting that I can no longer tell the difference between a 12 year old and a 20 year old. They all look the same to me, and sometimes I see what looks like a 12 year old about to drive a bus, or standing in a white coat in a doctor's surgery and realise that it is actually the bus driver, or the doctor, and I feel like I can't possibly board the bus or get pharmaceuticals from this person because they literally have only just been potty trained! I went for one of those all-over-body MOT things a couple of years ago and one of these 'man-children' was the doctor. It was fine up until the breast and gynaecological assessment at which point I absolutely had to draw the line and ordered him off to find me a grown-up (and a female one at that). Doogie Howser MD has become a freakish reality!
This does remind me of a very funny moment when I was coming back from lunch with a friend of mine who walked up to a little boy that was standing in the lobby of our office building in London wearing a rucksack and with his back to us. She crouched down, put her arm round him and asked him if he'd lost his daddy...as he turned round she was confronted with the bearded face of a 40 year old midget.
Anyway - off on a tangent there but back to the subject in hand..... It's funny how we suddenly hear ourselves say something and realise we have turned into our parents. I actually chose a pair of shoes for comfort rather than fashion the other day and when Dan asked me why, I replied "ooh well I wouldn't want chilly feet, I'd catch a cold".... WHAT??!!!! I used to go out in the middle of winter in a long vest with a belt round the middle, a pair of over-the-knee socks, a face-full of make-up and nothing else! When did I start caring whether I caught pneumonia as long as I looked good ('good' being a matter of opinion clearly) in the hospital bed? I also find myself worrying about things that I would never have given a second thought about. On the bus, instead of listening to my iPod or reading Grazia, I am nervously tapping a foot and chewing a nail wondering why the sage has attacked the basil in the herb garden and whether I should have done something to prevent it and if I am neglectful for letting it get to this stage and oh my goodness what if I neglect my children to the same degree, how will I ever be able to help them with their maths homework when I didn't even turn up at my maths GCSE and I can barely add up?? And how will I teach them to be team players when I am the worst person ever at team sports because my attitude is that if I spend all that time and energy getting hold of a ball there's no bloody way on God's earth I'm giving it away to someone else - I'm sodding well keeping hold of it......! Seriously - when do we start thinking like this?? I don't like it one bit.
Thankfully a glass or 3 of wine usually helps me get over the worry, and luckily I have managed to hang onto some of my shallowness and superficiality, so it's not all about the kids, the herb garden, whether I'm going to be a good wife etc etc etc.... I still have plenty of brain space for me, me, me.... Though my thoughts have progressed somewhat from "how shall I do my make-up?" to "When should I get botox?" and from "What bra will give me a great cleavage?" to "How many decilitres of silicone would give me the desired effect".... Its a sign of the times I suppose, and in an age where if something droops it can be lifted back up again, and if something breaks you can just get a new one, and if something that God gave you doesn't quite work then a different kind of God (that can be found on Harley Street) can offer you a different kind..... Don't get me wrong, I'm not the victim of any of the above (yet, and hopefully not ever!) but there's no harm in planning for the future is there? That's what they tell you about life insurance and you have to be dead to benefit from that, so this is a much more realitsic plan to start with....!
And on that happy note I need to go and water the plants before they die of neglect, iron my shirt for work tomorrow, wrap the leftovers in cling-film, and then lie awake in bed worrying about how we'd survive if there was a terrorist attack tomorrow..... guten nacht meine Freunde und Lassen Sie sich nicht im Bett Insekten beißen.. (? Luckily I don't need to worry about my childrens' language skills hey??!)
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