A local radio station ran a piece recently on whether not children spend too much time looking at screens and not enough time playing outside, getting ruddy-cheeked and grass-stained.
Their experts (a grandma from Sandiacre and a bloke called Tony who doesn’t have kids) were in fiery agreement, that kids these days are indeed a lazy bunch of lounge-lizards, content only when 15 million megapixels are shining directly into their retinas, content never to leave their child-caves lest they catch a lethal dose of vitamin D waddling to the car for the school run. They are an obese, entitled generation of layabouts who were given phones at birth and wouldn’t hesitate to outbid your Nan on eBay.
WELL. I had some THOUGHTS. Yes, Tony, my daughter can code an entire computer game from scratch and edit homemade animation which she casts to our xBox from my laptop. She can also do her times tables, knows the rules of chess and can bake cupcakes without a recipe. She does indeed play Minecraft after school, but she spends all summer camping around the UK while her dad and I perform at dozens of festivals. She is far better at learning about new technology than I am, and I’m writing this on Microsoft Word 93 so suck it Tony. You too, Sullen from Sandiacre.
My daughter is the generation you sighed about, and you compared her life to your own wistful childhoods full of good old rickets and rationing. Mind you, after Brexit we might have a small glimpse into those halcyon days when antibiotics are being sold for £100 a pop behind the bins at Tesco, so chin up. She’s also the generation which will be left to sort out the mistakes of mine and yours, and she’ll be using a computer to do it.
How about we all open our minds a little and look at what these fantastic advances mean to our children instead of attributing lazy stereotypes to a group of people you simply don’t know. You have no clue how clever our kids are, what a huge (and daunting, I’m not daft) place the internet is, and what brilliant things are out there to help kids learn and understand. Chill out Tony, the kids are alright.
DL