This Generation

Aidan asked me last week if he could have a Facebook account. He’s 9.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that my answer was a resounding no.

The world my kids are growing up in is such a different one than I grew up in. Every generation claims that, I know. Every set of parents always thinks that it’s harder to have kids in the time they exist in than ever before.

And I’d make the argument that every set of parents is right. (Well, maybe except for the Depression generation….it had to be pretty awful to raise a child back then, and compared to those times, the next generation had it easier.)

The truth is that science and technology has always outpaced the ability of humans to deal with it. We come up with bigger, faster, better before we quite know what we are going to do with it. And we raise our children in an environment of constant evolution and adaptation.

Think about it…think about all the things that our kids have become accustomed to that didn’t even exist 10 or 20 years ago, or if they did, they weren’t in wide use by masses in society. The personal computer, internet, cell phones, satellites, DVRs, ipods, gaming systems, GPS navigation systems, social networking, ebay, craigslist.

When I had a report due for school and it had to be typed, I actually had to type it. On a typewriter. At some point, I had a fancy word processor machine. I finally got a computer in my junior year of college.

When we were kids, if you wanted to get a hold of someone, you had to have access to a land line. If you were out, you had to find a payphone and actually have change in your pocket. If they were on the phone, you got a busy signal. If they weren’t home, you could leave a message only if they had an answering machine. You couldn’t just call them 24/7.

We only had the tv channels 2-13 when I was a kid and I was the remote control. If you missed seeing something live on tv, you missed it. Period. Music came on radios and cassette tapes and eventually CDs. You listened to the same 12 songs over and over, your CDs skipped when you tried to exercise with them.

We had Commodore 64s and only if you were really lucky, an Atari. If you were driving somewhere you weren’t familiar with, you took a map with you. If you wanted to chat with friends, you had to do it in person. If you needed to sell some stuff, you had a garage sale.

It is an entirely different world they live in.

Everyone it seems is instantly accessible now. It takes far less effort to stay in contact with people than it used to, which definitely has pluses and minuses. Everything you do anymore is out there for the world to see. Your accomplishments and your mistakes, public information.

The thing about technology, at least in this moment in time, is that it makes communication easier, but it doesn’t actually make it better. Texting will never be as good as talking. Online chatting will never substitute for an actual conversation. It seems the more connected we are, the less in touch we are.

In some ways, all this actually makes us more isolated.

Adults have a hard enough time grasping that. And kids, our kids, are growing up in a world where this is the norm.

I want my kids to develop their personal interaction skills before they delve into the world of leading virtual lives. Before they become always accessible and instantly connected, I want them to figure out that sometimes being away from that all is better.

Sometimes you don’t want to be found. Sometimes you don’t want everyone to know what your status is. Sometimes you don’t need to share that all with the world. Sometimes you need to learn better first.

This world we live in today is a hard one because I have to raise my kids at home and in the public eye all at once. They have to grow up both as individuals and as members of a constantly more interconnected society. They have to be infinitely more aware of everyone and everything around them, because someone is always watching.

I know that at some point, I will give in to the world we live in. I’m not delusional. I know already that Aidan is better at using a lot of this new technology than I will ever be. It’s second nature to him, to the children of this generation, because they have always had it. At some point, my kids will have cells phones and email accounts and Facebook profiles. First though, I think I’ll let them just be kids for a bit longer.

I’m a mean mom. I told him no.

Kelly is a doula, a photographer, a woman, a wife and a mom of 4 incredible kids.