It's a funny time we live in. I look at my three-year old daughter and she's already surfing you tube for Peppa Pig by seasons and episodes. I type keywords for her to get to her source of five-minute undivided attention. One swipe of finger and lo behold, the world of short cartoon snippets and DIY playdough projects is unveiling before her. (Who has the time and attention span for the classic half-hour episode now, right?)
And I can only gasp and wonder what this generation will be all about. It'll be radically different from the world we grew up in, no doubt. As I wait for the slow miracle of water-heating in my bath, I catch her lounging on the couch, seemingly engrossed in saving the world from her phone.
I briefy lay down with her and look at the view from her eyes. (Oh but first we take a selfie.)
I see a kid whose vision and curiosity for learning is instantly gratified, thanks to magic crystal ball-like gadgets, assuring her of a less than ten-second waiting time. Hmm...no wonder then that patience has died a sorry death in the waiting line of virtues to be recognized by the 2010s born, or the Alpha generation.
Back in the day, when we were little—oh yes, I'm already saying these things—remember how electronic gadgets still had that exotic bird sheen and were completely off-limits? And you couldn't even rewind a videotape without supervision and when you were finally allowed to talk on the pricey cordless phone, you kept doing that goofy, enraptured hop to see how far your cordless phone would get reception outside your home? So of course it's still unimaginable to me that a three-year old can use my phone with an air of authority, talk to her grandparents at length, knowing fully well which window she needs to lean on to get network. She switches channels on TV, surfs youtube and dictates on-point wardrobe choices based on her whims and fancies. And she's already expanding her working vocabulary with an occasional heavy-word shocker like "frustrated" and "tepid". And if I raise my eyebrow, she always has one retort. "Caillou says it." Psstt...[Caillou is an annoying cartoon character who makes me want to smack my phone to pieces every time he speaks in his whiny voice.]
Ok, not to say that our childhood didn't have any 'OMG, really" edges of its own. Sure, we didn't have Skype chats and virtual reality. We grew up playing the same games as our older siblings even though they were all about mass-homicide and getting pulped to death for no damn reason. (Umm...what else did you think happened to Mario every single time?) Coming from the age of free-range childhood when our parents really had no geo-tags telling them where we were all day, I can already see that there are some things that our kids could never claim to have that we did.
Like Goldspot. (Remember how good that was?) Like making pen-pals from another country and losing touch abruptly and wondering whatever the hell happened to them. Like getting blisters on your hands and feet from playing in the heat in the dead of afternoon without so much as a dime-size portion of sunscreen and day-time mosquito repellents to save you from radiation and dengue. Also, remember playing with a bunch of kids and bringing them home for snacks without even knowing their names? Best days ever.
Even then, I'm halfway through this decade and doing more double-takes on the antics, quick wit and observation power of my three-year old daughter than the number of times my dad threw his hands in despair at our practical jokes. His favorite lines were "Kya hoga tum logo ka" and the house-favorite "Apne bade bhai behen se kuch seekho". In my dad's defense, we were his second batch of kids and naturally his proclivity for dealing with our shit had deterred in quality, kinda like the latter seasons of Full House.
All these yesteryear reminiscences has got me thinking about how the children of 2010 — sounds almost as menacing as the children of the damned — or the alpha generation, would recall their childhood.
So I thought I'll go ahead and create a list that stereotype a kid (and a parent) from this decade, one which Saanvi can read some day in the future and LOL at. But she'll probably say, "Mom, why couldn't you just use memes instead? Yea, I really have a lot of spare time.
Hey, remember the time:
1. "We played football all through recess...in the rain! And remember how you loved sneaking up behind me to splash mud balls at me. And then we forgot all about the game and just kicked mud at each other! Man we'd be so ewww if we were playing for real. Maxim Knightnemesis is still showering dude!"
2."Mom invited you for lunch and she had this epic menu planned out. But she kept torturing us by making us click pictures of tomatoes and some gluten-free crap. When we finally got to eat, after clicking a selfie with our little portions of pretty food, we figured there was no salt and the pretty goat cheese was pretty prett-ay stinky! So we ate take-out pizza instead, but pictures of our happy faces drooling all over little plates of food made it to Mom's instagram with hashtags #foodpornforkids and #theywipeditclean.
3. "We were forced to read the classics so we got hold of one of those travel-around-the-world books that sound exciting. Moby Dick, right? He lost me at Massachusetts dude... I mean who in God’s name refers to their friends as chums? Ewww... And why does everything have to be symbolic? Uggh...Bottom line: You should totally read a book by its cover. (The book jacket was f-in' dull and dated!)
5. "Oh we were planning my ninth birthday and mum said she was out of themes. We'd already done superheroes, avatar, jungle book, the underwater thing, cars and everything. So mom said, "You know we really didn't have any themes when we were growing up." And bam, I got my next theme! It was the 90s. Everyone dressed up in tacky clothes with shoulder pads and dorky hairstyles and listened to awful music that we couldn't stop humming in class the next day. It was epic! Well for everyone except mom who wasn't too pleased about having to bake a cake by herself and cook all the food. How else would it be convincing, no?"
6.
"I think I was seven and we were at the airport waiting to board a flight to Bangkok. I went to get myself some water and saw a friend's dad from school and we started talking. He bought some cake for Sasha, who was waiting at another corner. I was about to walk up to Sasha with him holding my hand and leading the way when mom jumped out of nowhere and started yelling at my friend's dad on top of her voice. She talked fast berating me for walking off with Sasha's dad, who was a stranger to her. After she was done recapping all the horrifying viral videos she'd seen on social media thereby establishing Sasha's dad was a perv who'd spiked my cake, I told her in a soft voice, "Mom, you remember Sasha? Sasha's dad." And then I watched her face go from white to red in under ten secs. Weird mom alert!"
7. "We went to a cousin's for a week and they didn't have Netflix and our laptops and iPads were off-limits. And by the time we got back, we were lagging behind eight episodes of GoT and when we got back to school, everyone started giving away spoilers, like really meaty ones involving Jon Snow. That's a week of my life wasted watching commercials and women in Halloween costumes! I can't even...."
8. We were having a party at a friend's place and somebody sneaked in alcohol. We were 12 then. Neel's mom got home before time and complained to everyone's parents that we were drinking. We were all collectively grounded for two weeks, cut off from our cellphones so no whatsapp, insta and FB. On the fourth day, Neel got hold of his iPad from his dad's room and created a petition on FB to explain the situation and how we've been unfairly punished. And somebody shared that petition on his dad's wall saying "Please share if you agree that these poor victims of circumstance should be un-grounded!" Ofcourse, Neel was grounded for a whole month after that. But his petition got over 3000 likes!
9."We went through different selfie obsessions - one with the duckface in different places - at a coffee shop, at the gym, in the closet. And then we shot the duckfaces (cos they were stupid) and moved on to moustaches. And then we started cloning ourselves. What would be without our selfies? Apple pie selfie. Bae selfie. Cute streetdog selfie. (It bit me later so more like an ouchie.) Selfie's selfie. One time, I felt I'd had enough. I mean what's the point right? Look at me. I'm so cute even when I'm hideous! But I decided to take one anyway. It was the existential crisis selfie dude. Cos life's a selfie! Ooh that should be my next caption. "
10.
"Oh and we were chatting and you said something cheesy...and I really don't remember what. But I remember looking for the cheese emoji and spending the next five minutes looking for it and when I couldn't find it, I googled about it. I even tweeted to get answers. But whoah! There's no cheese emoji dude!"
Got any fun "Remember the time" to add to the list? Be my guest and write below :).
And I can only gasp and wonder what this generation will be all about. It'll be radically different from the world we grew up in, no doubt. As I wait for the slow miracle of water-heating in my bath, I catch her lounging on the couch, seemingly engrossed in saving the world from her phone.
I briefy lay down with her and look at the view from her eyes. (Oh but first we take a selfie.)
I see a kid whose vision and curiosity for learning is instantly gratified, thanks to magic crystal ball-like gadgets, assuring her of a less than ten-second waiting time. Hmm...no wonder then that patience has died a sorry death in the waiting line of virtues to be recognized by the 2010s born, or the Alpha generation.
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| The Daddy Dearest Selfie |
Like Goldspot. (Remember how good that was?) Like making pen-pals from another country and losing touch abruptly and wondering whatever the hell happened to them. Like getting blisters on your hands and feet from playing in the heat in the dead of afternoon without so much as a dime-size portion of sunscreen and day-time mosquito repellents to save you from radiation and dengue. Also, remember playing with a bunch of kids and bringing them home for snacks without even knowing their names? Best days ever.
Even then, I'm halfway through this decade and doing more double-takes on the antics, quick wit and observation power of my three-year old daughter than the number of times my dad threw his hands in despair at our practical jokes. His favorite lines were "Kya hoga tum logo ka" and the house-favorite "Apne bade bhai behen se kuch seekho". In my dad's defense, we were his second batch of kids and naturally his proclivity for dealing with our shit had deterred in quality, kinda like the latter seasons of Full House.
All these yesteryear reminiscences has got me thinking about how the children of 2010 — sounds almost as menacing as the children of the damned — or the alpha generation, would recall their childhood.
So I thought I'll go ahead and create a list that stereotype a kid (and a parent) from this decade, one which Saanvi can read some day in the future and LOL at. But she'll probably say, "Mom, why couldn't you just use memes instead? Yea, I really have a lot of spare time.
Hey, remember the time:
3. "We were forced to read the classics so we got hold of one of those travel-around-the-world books that sound exciting. Moby Dick, right? He lost me at Massachusetts dude... I mean who in God’s name refers to their friends as chums? Ewww... And why does everything have to be symbolic? Uggh...Bottom line: You should totally read a book by its cover. (The book jacket was f-in' dull and dated!)
4."We went on a roadtrip and dad gave us this whole long speech on how we have no taste of adventure cos we've never been lost. So he shut the GPS lady and off we went. And then he kept asking people for directions, and once we came round to ask the same guy twice and he said, "Dude, don't you have GPS?" I still don't get the point. But going on that isolated trail with a dead end was so badass!"
6.
7. "We went to a cousin's for a week and they didn't have Netflix and our laptops and iPads were off-limits. And by the time we got back, we were lagging behind eight episodes of GoT and when we got back to school, everyone started giving away spoilers, like really meaty ones involving Jon Snow. That's a week of my life wasted watching commercials and women in Halloween costumes! I can't even...."
8. We were having a party at a friend's place and somebody sneaked in alcohol. We were 12 then. Neel's mom got home before time and complained to everyone's parents that we were drinking. We were all collectively grounded for two weeks, cut off from our cellphones so no whatsapp, insta and FB. On the fourth day, Neel got hold of his iPad from his dad's room and created a petition on FB to explain the situation and how we've been unfairly punished. And somebody shared that petition on his dad's wall saying "Please share if you agree that these poor victims of circumstance should be un-grounded!" Ofcourse, Neel was grounded for a whole month after that. But his petition got over 3000 likes!
9."We went through different selfie obsessions - one with the duckface in different places - at a coffee shop, at the gym, in the closet. And then we shot the duckfaces (cos they were stupid) and moved on to moustaches. And then we started cloning ourselves. What would be without our selfies? Apple pie selfie. Bae selfie. Cute streetdog selfie. (It bit me later so more like an ouchie.) Selfie's selfie. One time, I felt I'd had enough. I mean what's the point right? Look at me. I'm so cute even when I'm hideous! But I decided to take one anyway. It was the existential crisis selfie dude. Cos life's a selfie! Ooh that should be my next caption. "
10.
Got any fun "Remember the time" to add to the list? Be my guest and write below :).
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