Baby steps...

Ok… deep breath… and relax. So I’ve never blogged before, not I might add because I have nothing to say. Those who know me will know that the opposite is true (hmmm.. spell-check.. will this thing spell-check, or do I have to check my spelling as well as trying to be intellectual AND entertaining?? And while we’re on the subject, why do words we know perfectly well how to spell, look distorted and alien the more we analyse them? Is it a trick of the mind or is it a deeper psychosis relating to our own self-analysis? Alas, I digress… baby steps, remember?). My son has been blogging since he could write/type. He’s a true child of the 21st century. He speaks in internet talk, he has far flung friends on all corners of the globe and he spends his time on creations (pictures, stories, videos) he wishes to the world to see. I know some would say that they way I’ve allowed him to grow up is damaging to him, but are things really that different to the way they were when I or his dad were children? When I was his age, I was just as precocious. I was the youngest of 9 siblings (which is another blog in itself) and so grew up fast. It also meant I spent a lot of time with older people. Don’t get me wrong, I had toys and child friends, but they lost their appeal early on. I wanted cups of tea and conversation. I had quite a sophisticated sense of humour brought about by years of living with my witty and sarcastic Irish Catholic family! I didn’t have penpals but I really should have. I wanted to world to know everything about me because I felt I had something to say. And so Andy isn’t any different. Sure, the rules have changed… everything is so much more accessible nowadays and nothing is impossible anymore. My kids can’t imagine a world where they can think of something which doesn’t exist and they take it for granted, unlike anyone a generation apart who still find it amazing that anything is possible. I still find it hard to believe that we can watch tv again… there’s no such thing as missing your favourite programme. You can listen to any song, at any time from almost any medium and while you’re listening to can find the lyrics, the artists birthdate and possibly even what they had for breakfast. When I was a kid, I loved the theme song to The Greatest American Hero (yeah, you remember it!). But it wasn’t until the invention of the internet that I could find out who sung it and download a copy. But I waited… maybe I knew what was to come. Nowadays we’re all contactable, all the time. In our house, we all have mobile devices that we can text, email, facebook and tweet from. We never talk on the phone, in fact I never really got to grips with phone conversations - I’ve always been better with the written word, whether with actual pen and paper or in type. So you get the picture. My son is a child of his generation just like I was and things will change during his lifetime like they did during mine. And like me, he’ll find it hard to accept that one day his child will know more about the world than he does. And he’s probably say that things were different in his day. But really we’re all pretty much the same as children, it’s the rest of the world that’s changing and we adapt as we were created to do. Andy doesn’t hang round street corners with his mates, but he does gab endlessly online with kids that he has more in common with. Andy doesn’t play football but he’s happy to go for a walk so long as he can tweet on the move. Andy spends a lot of time on facebook but he’s swapping stories and photos with friends he’s met through St. John’s Ambulance. Our childhood worlds are poles apart and although some would say that the old way was better and some would say the new way is safer, I reckon we’ll not turn out that much differently.