As life seems to fly by, i don't think anyone is able to capture their days no more. Unable to embrace those happy times, and regret the sad. The clock ticks away uncaringly, and we have to recall each passing day un-sure if it was a dream or reality.
My children comment all the time about how the year is going. And that made me think. Made me realise that if i don't act now, those three ankle snappers who demand feeding, clothing and items that needs a mortgage, will be fledgling, leaving me and their father alone, to live our lives as we did before marriage and births.
I know many of you out there can recall your childhoods, remember those long hot summers, the glorious big school holidays where we were out at 9am and our parents shouting us for tea at 6pm. And the only time we ever went home, was if we were starving to death, or needed stitching up after falling from a tree.
Now all, or should i say most, of this generation have not grasped the beauty of playing out, making dens, playing cowboy and indians, or even having a picnc in the park with their mates, eating jam butties, and drinking warm cola. Now they are recluse, hiding in their rooms playing computer games whilst talking to people on headphones, or typing a message on Facebook, letting them know that they are eating, fed-up, or off to bed.
Who is to blame for the mess that is in front of us? Is it the makers of Atari, who gave us Pac-Man and allowed us to play real games (in that era of course) where it was not a line going up and down and we had to hit a spot. Or Nintendo, for the Mario brothers, on those dinky small hand-held consoles? Or Sega, that gave us Sonic the Hedgehog? What about that first real computer that we, the public bought, with the cassette player and an hour of getting the thing to work before giving up? (that was me, impaitient as ever!)
The men and women of today are brighter, i must admit, more tech wise and know what makes it big, what doesn't, and what we, the public, are suppose to need. A console that was bought one day is quickly an old tyre that needs disposing of the next, to pave the way for the 4th in the series. Phones, a must for kids under 10, who have no idea what a phone is, only that you can play games, and annoy their parents who need to make a call, only to find that the battery is almost as dead as the night-before-feeling in your gut.
I mean a phone for children? As like many of us who are around from the "stone age" we had nothing like a phone. We did what we did without communicating via mobile. And if we were clever made our own decvices by using two plastic cups and string. However, if you were rich you had a walkie talkie. That was cool in my days, especially if you got to hear other folk transmitting whilst moving that signal button around.
But technology has moved on quick, maybe too quick, which to me does feel like a bad aura. I mean we have so many devices that only need a fingertip, an eye movement, or the swinging of an hand, what else can they do to make us buy a product that we don't really need? Implants are the only option. It is the only way, i think. No idea where they'd stick this micro-chip, it could be in our eyes, ears, or backside, i have no idea. But be warned!
Nevertheless, our little bundles of joy are being bought into a world which is fast paced in technology, but communication wise will be a disater.
The next time you go out for the night, you watch those yonger folk. They sit with their partners, or friends, tapping frantically on their mobiles, they may show the other person their screen if a funny reply or picture has been posted, but other than that...not a sound. They don't talk, laugh, go into a deep depth converastion, they just tap away as though the end of the world is nearing and that they must put their last memory on a site for all too see. A very sad future is looming.
We, the older generation, will be the last of the gossipers via mouth, the last communicaters of this world, before all will be silenced taken away by the magic of technolgy.
So what can i do as a parent? I could be cruel, take their treasured items away, and allow them to be kids, to explore life the way that i did, to fall over, get hurt and try again. But if i do this, am i blocking their own future by making them live my past? I suppose it is all down to each individual how we do this.
And so i end this mild rant, and beg my daughter to come downstairs and cook cakes, and switch the electric off, so that my son knows that there is a real life to take hold of rather than killing men on a video game. Enjoy the time you have, before the clock ticks faster and were nearing 2014.
Take care
Victoria J Smith
Twitter@toryjsmith
http://www.scribd.com/doc/113772693/Alison-Benson-and-the-Realm-of-Wonders-Union
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