Away at me caravan and the daughter turns up with the grandson. Mrs and daughter bugger off for fish n chips and he's left with me playing on his Nintendo switch or whatever. I asked him if he liked coming to the caravan. "Yeah" Asked him how old he was. "8" ( I know that lol ) Asked him what he wanted to do when he grows up! "To be a YouTuber" FFS. I said "don't you want a proper job, be constructive etc. ?" Blank stare. I also asked if he'd like to live at the caravan. "Nope" "Why not?" I asked "since you like it so much." "No internet" FFS, I mentioned that at his age we had no internet, no video games, only three tv channels and no double glazing and central heating, so the house was freezing in winter. He said. "How did you have fun?" I said, "A lot more than you kids. We went out and did things, looked at the sky, our surroundings, played games like war, tig, football, (not just on a Sunday but on the street or in the park during the week). I never mentioned "doctors and nurses" lol, as much as I enjoyed it with the strawberry blonde girl in the next street but by fook it was better fun than what they perceive today. God help the next generation.
It's crazy to think that as a kid maybe only a few of my group of mates would have a football and rarely would that ball actually be a casey. Most likely it would have been a vinyl Frido or the heavier plastic Wembley Trophy - and you had to hope it hadn't been left in the sun or near a fire and gone slightly egg shaped! Still, I bet I had more fun just playing out whilst growing up than today's kids do.
As with most things it's about balance isn't it, play on your phone, watch TV, play playstation etc but not for 12 hours on a Saturday every weekend and 8 hours after school every night. This current generation are definitely losing the ability to talk to each other and discover things with their hands, the flip side is that we are becoming digital and that means most jobs will also be digital before long, in 50 years most jobs will be maintenance of robotics rather than skills we have ourselves, it's very sad and will probably lead to more struggles with our place in the world and more time for existential anxiety imo. At the minute we've put convenience at the top of our wishlist but it will actually make us all unwell if we never have to physically do anything.
It’s a tough one because literally everything is tech these days, we limit our daughters time on her stuff. She gets time to play out with friends, family time and tech time, it’s a happy balance and works well for her. Far too easy these days for parents to stick an ipad in a kids hands to entertain themselves. We visited our friends grandbairn for the 1st time the other week, he’s 10 months and was just stuck in his Walker with a tablet watching peppa pig !! We were there an hour and his Mam and dad and grandparents never batted an eye ! I think kids were fitter when I was young because we were out and about all hours of the day, running about playing football or anything with a ball really. Fresh air, children’s company and a strong imagination is a far better way to grow up than staring into a screen all day everyday
I was at celebration in Thailand a few years back, was sat at a table with a guy who could speak english, no problems, then 3 other guys join us on the table, they proceeded to look at their phone and start texting, the other guy says these are my 3 best mates. I looked at them, not one had acknowledged him or anyone else, and said are you sure they are your mates? Not in my book, mates at least acknowledge their friends, they never said a word to anyone, just looked at their phones for at least an hour before I moved off to dance with someone, who I didn't really know, but just to get away from the three amigos with their phones.
Different day and age, the kid is only looking up to his idols. I’m sure if someone asked you what you wanted to be at the age of 8 you would have said a footballer, no different really…
We are literally sleep-walking into so many issues we have yet to confront as a society On matters such as the embryonic spawning of the cyborg, digitally enhanced systems of society and individually implanted in our bodies, driverless cars and an end to car ownership, enhanced ageing and our freedoms eroded away ...
I’m reading a book “The future is faster than you think” There’s a lot of stuff that we think is beyond our lifetime , but apparently is just around the corner . Fascinating, but a bit concerning the same . On the sleepwalking point , I feel now that whilst we/ society are becoming more and more intolerant to human advice/ instruction- we are more so willing to be changed so long as it’s technology that’s influencing us .
Kids these days man. We had jumpers for goalposts, if you came across a field with posts it was like wembley. We used trolleys as wickets. If anyone had any stumps we used them as javelin along with other athletics events. We could play out all day, grab lunch at someones parents house and get a load of sweets from 20p. It's sad that my kids will never experience that.
To be fair he plays football, rugby and taekwondo. And the daughter does take him for walks up the lanes. I didn't want to be a footballer. Wasn't keen as a kid. I'd of took , professional snooker player, boxer or guitarist in a band
