Mum gets plugged in
I am a Luddite. Privacy controls? Fugedaboudit. When I try to 'text' someone from my phone, I am all thumbs. I get my kids to do it. I prefer e-mail; I tell my friends that texting me is a gamble.
Even my daughters know what 'Luddite' means, I have said it so often, usually accompanied by the historical provenance/etymology of that word. The Luddite movement was a response to the increasing mechanisation of human life that was a result of the industrial revolution. It started in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, but grew as industrialisation and its attendant ills - child labour, sweatshops, urban homelessness - spread. What would those original Luddites think about us today?
The way we communicate has also undergone a major revolution, especially since I was my children's age. Back then, the term 'communication gap' referred to the lamentable lack of understanding between the generations, and as the women's movement grew, between the sexes as well. For many today, the communication gap refers to how family contact is being compromised by the use of modern communications technology. And for me, another gap exists: my children are miles ahead of me on the road to understanding communications technologies.
If I see it as a problem, though, I best get on board and try to make it work for my family. One hundred years ago, like in an episode of Little House on the Prairie, a family would sit together in front of the fire, girls doing homework, mother mending, Pa fine-tuning some carpentry, or playing his fiddle, or shining a saddle or something. Now there may be an evening from time to time where we sit together quietly, someone on iPad, someone on a laptop, someone on Facebook, someone on YouTube. And I would survey the scene, with book in hand maybe, and a satisfied smile: A pretty picture. The modern family.
But there are limits to this familial bliss. The kids would stay on forever if you let them. Most 'experts' will say to put limits on the use of the technology: mobile phones, computer games and social media. Coached by Oprah, I have asked my children for their passwords. They told me them ungrudgingly. But because, at my age, my mind resembles a sieve, I forgot the passwords and don't have the nerve to ask for them again.
I joined Facebook because someone said it is a good way to sell more books (not so sure about that!), and one day I saw an exchange between my cousin and her daughter about how happy she was to be going out with her mum later that night. After connecting with my cousin to say how nice it must feel to be privy to such thoughts, even via Facebook, I learned that it had been written from the girl's upstairs bedroom. At first I was shocked, but I realised it didn't matter. The thought was there. It was expressed.
The other day my husband was reading his Facebook page:
Two years: 'Mummy, I love you.'
12: 'Mum... Whatever.'
16: 'Mum is so annoying.'
18: 'I want to leave this place.'
25: 'Mum... you were right.'
30: 'I want to go to Mum's house.'
50: 'I don't want to lose my Mum.'
70: 'I would give up everything for my Mum to be here with me.'
'A mother is irreplaceable, post this on your wall if you appreciate and love your mum?'
'Where did you hear that?' I asked enviously, with book in hand.
'Your daughter's Facebook page.'
Since my daughter was seated nearby (on YouTube) we had a lovely conversation about it, and the next day I went online to see the post for myself. Two people 'liked' her post, including my BFF from high school days and a mother of two boys and a girl. Next, a middle-aged friend of mine responded. He was one of my daughter's first Facebook friends (she 'friended' him because she was desperate to sign up anyone I assume, having just started, and I wonder if she has misgivings now). His response: 'Fathers on the other hand ...'
Although I was touched by the sentiment in my daughter's post, I answered in a lighthearted way. I know that to do otherwise would be considered an embarrassment: Oh you are so sweet ... it looks like we are right on schedule, then.
But on second thoughts I decided to 'Facebook' from my heart: 'No, just kidding. Really, my petite pet, this post made my day. I am so lucky to be your mama.'
Being a writer, I was intrigued by how those simple words had such a profound impact on me. So I posted again, Let me try!
Two years: 'Baby, don't you ever sleep?'
12: 'Pre-teen, what is going on?'
16: 'Teenager, where's my child?'
18: 'I miss my baby.'
25: 'I want my baby back.'
30: 'I'll take my child back any way I can get her.'
50: 'I did well.'
70: 'You go, girl!'
After a few days, I noticed my post was 'liked' by two people; my BFF - and my daughter.
She likes me. She really likes me.
It's enough to make an old mum abandon Luddism.
Karmel Schreyer is a Hong Kong-based writer and mother of two wonderful children
