We are now well into 2025 and the Christmas holidays already feel like a distant memory. Did I really get the time to finish an entire book? Did we really build that massive castle thing out of Lego? I won’t lie, we did very little over our Christmas break and it was absolute bliss, but this past week has felt a bit like being dropped off into the deep end all over again.
We are now well into 2025 and the Christmas holidays already feel like a distant memory. Did I really get the time to finish an entire book? Did we really build that massive castle thing out of Lego?
I won’t lie, we did very little over our Christmas break and it was absolute bliss, but this past week has felt a bit like being dropped off into the deep end all over again.
Remember when January was traditionally a slower month? It served to gently draw you into the new work year. No cows to milk, no calves yet making their appearance. And then the day job – January was a great month for planning out the year ahead; making sure you were well organised.
I feel like all of that has just gone out the window – it’s just as busy, if not busier, than the rest of the year. The kids are right back into those after-school activities and it feels like you’re in meeting after meeting.
Despite how much busier they make my life; I think the kids are gas. Over the festive season they confirmed to me just how little I know about technology – video games and the like – and how much they do know. At the ages of seven and eight, I think my two youngest children have officially outsmarted me. The eldest surpassed me a few years ago.
When you think about it, my generation were among the last to truly know how it felt like to live in an un-digitised world. We had dial-up phones (and even had local operators in our village – the things those operators must have heard), no internet, no Alexa, no drones. We had books and crayons and, eventually, Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Megadrive.
My children have never known anything but this interconnected world. It feels like they were just born with an innate understanding of how to use technology – and how to use it better than their mother.
Do you worry your kids are a little too interested in those fantasy worlds?
I put off having an Alexa for a really long time. I didn’t think an AI assistant would bring anything new to my life – and I was right. I don’t even think about asking Alexa for anything. The kids though? The second she was installed on our new smart television, the questions never ended. ‘What time is it, Alexa? Can you tell us a joke, Alexa? Alexa, turn down the volume’.
The husband is enjoying the technology, as well. He loves an auld video game on the Playstation with the kids. They got that Harry Potter game for Christmas – Hogwarts Legacy, it’s called – and they spend hours completing tasks and getting sorted into magical houses. Never mind I have more than a few tasks around the house they could be helping with; they prefer the fantasy world to the real one.
Do you worry your kids are a little too interested in those fantasy worlds? Our eight-year-old asked for a “VR” (virtual reality) headset for Christmas and I just flat out said no. I worry that she would prefer virtual reality to actual reality. Sometimes I think our kids are turning into mindless zombies because they have been hooked to technology since they were babies.
At the time, I thought those Little Baby Bum YouTube videos were great yokes because they would actually sit quietly and watch while I made dinner. Now I wonder if I started their addiction to YouTube.
These are the things they’ll be telling their therapist someday.
My eldest is now at an age where she is asking for a phone of her own. I don’t want to give her one, but she is also at an age when we’re able to leave her home alone for short periods of time (sure if we’re not in the house, someone is usually just a few steps away in the farmyard).
The problem is – sometimes when she is alone, I would like to be able to call her and check in. Houses don’t have landlines anymore, so getting her a phone would solve that problem, but again – at what cost?
I suppose we need to learn to live with the technology we have while not letting it take over our lives. It’s a fine balance. I need to be a bit more open to it, while the children (including the husband in this grouping) probably need to slow it down a bit.
Maybe this is a conversation I need to have with my therapist.
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