Out with the old and in with the new!

The other day my daughter wanted to watch a DVD.

She was brought up with them, but it has been a while since she used one.

After I loaded it in the machine, she walked out of the room.

“Mum, can you pause it please I need to go get something.”

“You’re good, it will stay on the menu page until you press start”

“Oh I forgot they did that!”

In my day it was VCR’s or video cassette recorders. We gave these up earlier than most, as we didn’t want to have to ship them half way around the world.

This means that my girls would have no idea how to use them, or the importance of the little black tab, or the challenge of hiring one which someone else had left in the middle.

I don’t think this matters, it is not a skill which is going to hold them back in life. But I think it is important to acknowledge the continuing changing times that we are in, and the speed that change seems to be happening.

For me there was LPs, tapes and then CDs, now there are down loads and streaming. Headphones had to be connected by a wire, now they are wireless, blue toothed and more than one can share the same song.

I guess I am saying here, don’t be hard on yourself if you are finding it hard to keep up. Don’t be hard on your kids if they have no sympathy with your stories of sitting there waiting to record the top 40, or rewinding tapes which got chewed up. We are living in a different world.

Be willing to learn from your kids, and they will be willing to learn from you.

That is my lesson for today.