So I was at my book club on Wednesday, telling Sandrine all about my children (everyone loves hearing about my children!) and she said something that made me pause. I was just saying that my son Jimmy is now off on his own, since he was accepted into that prestigious Melbourne video game design course. So prestigious! He got a scholarship and everything! Anyway, I just casually mentioned that sometimes I called Jimmy up and asked for computer tips, because he’s into all that silly business.
Well, you’d think that I’d said that I don’t peel potatoes before mashing them, by the way that Sandrine reacted. She went on a diatribe about how I should never, ever ask my kids about computers. They have a sacred right to go through life without older people asking for advice, and when we do, we’re just dragging them down. Apparently it’s one of the great parental sins, although also one that’s often transgressed.
Well…I never even consider it. And Sandrine usually has such wonderful ideas, but this one just goes way over the line. All I want is to know how to change my screensaver so it’s a picture of Mittens, and not those awful race cars that Danny likes so much. Or there was that one time when I needed Jimmy to tell me to remember to plug the desktop in because that was the reason it turned off. Why can’t it just hold a bit of power? My phone holds about a day’s worth of charge…why not a computer?
So anyway, I’m going to do my own research into this, because I think it’s a parental right to ask questions of your super smart kids doing swanky IT courses. I raised that boy, you know! He owes me the occasional tech support call!