Learning 2 txt & LMFAO

I remember when the “generation gap” meant that our parents hated our music and the length of our boyfriend’s hair.  We embroidered colorful symbols and words all over our brand new bell-bottomed jeans, and then walked on the hems until they frayed.  We took off our hairbands and tied leather strips across our foreheads.  We lashed out at “the Man” and “the War”—many times just to provoke our parents’ ire.    We redefined words like “cool” and “groovy” so we were “with it” and they were not.

Inevitably, history repeats itself.  This time, however, I am the out of date, out of touch fossil of a parent and my kids are too cool for school.  I remember shopping with my once-fourteen year old son for sneakers.  I thought I was scoring pretty high on the cool-meter taking him to a place with a huge array of colorful Nikes.  Every time I suggested a certain pair of shoes, he looked upon me in horror, as if I proposed a leisure suit.  Then he would select the pair next to it—with a “swoosh” of a slightly different hue—and proclaim those to be perfect.  “What’s the difference?” I asked, clueless.  “These are COOL!” he said, as if it was perfectly obvious.  Hey, junior, don’t you know that we INVENTED cool?

Fast forward to today’s world, where every kid old enough to walk has his own cell phone.  I am not exactly certain why I find this so offensive.  Is it a form of addiction?  Is it undue influence from a nefarious force?   I remember when a family of five—mine—lived for years with a single phone number in the house.  If someone called, you had to be courteous to others and limit your call to about ten minutes.  If you called a house where someone was on the phone, you got a busy signal and called back.  It was that simple.  Today, our kids walk around with phones in their pockets that serve more as tracking devices.  They bring them to the dinner table and to class.  I learned on Law and Order that there are even ring tones of a frequency not audible by older adults.  But the most baffling to me is that kids do not use their phones to make calls!

Texting is the new vernacular scoring the generational divide.  Even those of us who are savvy enough to embrace this new technology are taunted by our kids for not doing it right.  One day, I caught my two teenage children in a fit of hysteria over my efforts to be text-cool.  I referred to something as ‘POS’—meaning ‘piece of shit’—not realizing that this was kid-text-speak for ‘parent over shoulder,’ used to alert friends that the language, or perhaps topic, must be sanitized for parental consumption.  There was also the time I sent what I thought was a creative funny face :-*  to my daughter’s boyfriend  only to be blasted for sending him a “kissy face”. 

Until very recently, I was still sporting an old LG flip phone with a T9 keyboard, making me as text-impaired as any other citizen of the Jurassic period.  After several years pounding at that thing, my son took pity on me and clued me in on the predictive text keyboard setting.  This allowed me to hit each number key once for the letters rather than striking three times on the 5 key to get the letter L.  Of course, this had drawbacks of its own:  many words could be spelled with the same pattern of number keys.  When I texted my daughter at fencing practice to find out if she was finished, the message ‘Done?’ came up ‘Food?’  She was less than pleased when I picked her up without any sustenance. 

Four months ago, when the tyrants of Apple made peace with the autocrats of Verizon during one of my upgrade windows, I got an iphone.  I thought I had finally arrived, earning the respect of my Blackberry-toting kids.  But it takes a long time for a flat-fingered mama to learn to text on a tiny touch keyboard.   The letters L and M are so close to the backspace and return keys that my messaging often goes back and forth, eliminating letters I think I’ve typed.   Similarly, when I aim for A or Z, I often hit the SHIFT, causing missing and oddly capitalized letters mid-word.   In my effort to make the text experience an actual convenience, I tend to hit SEND hastily without glancing first at my creation.  So instead of getting a pleasant response from my daughter about how she did on a quiz, or whether she liked the new sweater I sent, I get a full dressing down:  “MOM, PROOFREAD YOUR TEXTS!!!!!!!”

None of this would be an issue if my kids actually answered their phones.  I try to call each of my kids at least once per week.  I love to hear the sounds of their voices, but more importantly, I can tell more about how they really are from a quick conversation.  Normally, while I try in vain to dial my daughter, I will get a message from her that says “Text only.  No time to talk.”  This seems somewhat incongruous, as she will then text me for the next hour.  I have come to the conclusion that there is a kid-born conspiracy to employ cell phones to keep parents at arm’s length.  It satisfies their need to remain in contact, but makes no concession to our desire to ensure their well-being.

Thus thwarted in the act of parenting I go B2W, trying to LOL rather than CID.  LIC!  They will BRB as soon as they run out of $$$.  FWIW, that’s FWM.

Tomorrow's blog:  For the Love of Chocolate