TECHNOLOGY

There are some things I’m really good at: writing, folding towels perfectly; coming up with the perfect biting retort three hours too late, and parenting children aged three.

Alas, there are things I’m not always great at: writing for profit, folding fitted sheets, parenting teenagers, and technology.

Last week, my beautiful husband gifted me a wireless speaker and earbud set, casually remarking, “you use Bluetooth to connect it.” Sure, just “use Bluetooth.”

What even is Bluetooth though? The light is red. Why is the speaker discoverable as “bamboo speaker,” which is a brilliant description that allows me to know exactly what I’m connecting to, but the earbuds are “KAABT65G8J0-4”? Why does only the left earbud charge? Which one is even the left one anyway?

Now, if you are reading this as a potential future employer or collaborator of mine, please know I can use MS Office, Canva, Google and social media analytical tools flawlessly, like the professional I am. However, I am unlikely to be able to connect to the office printer without the help of the IT department.

Of course, I have a mini IT department at home with me. I made them myself. But I try not to call on them for help because frankly, they are just mean.

Miss 14 arrives home from school and informs me, while laughing, that I have the earbuds in the wrong ears.

“How can you tell?” I ask, to fresh laughter. In response, she tells me she has a HSIE test to prepare for and sets herself up a study area at the table with her phone, mini speaker and laptop.

Miss Eight twirls past us on her way outside (ignoring her homework) and Hubby starts singing “You make me feel like dancing”.

Miss 14 rolls her eyes at the “old people music”, so I sneak her phone off the table and attempt to play the song through her speaker. After trying three different apps I finally find it on YouTube, but abandon my plan once I realise her speaker is connected via Bluetooth. Demanding her phone back (before I see any messages I assume) she literally falls off the chair laughing when she sees the first app I tried was TikTok and gleefully explains how out of touch I am.

The problem, of course, is that how they access music and technology today bears no resemblance to how I did growing up. At age 14, if I wanted to listen to a song I had to call the radio station and request it, then sit glued to my cassette/radio player for three-and-a-half hours waiting while crimping my hair. If I wanted my own copy I had to record it, using my ninja skills (and a lead pencil) to have the cassette wound to the exact right spot, identifying the song by its opening bar and hitting record ASAP. Learn the lyrics? That required saving up to buy TV Hits magazine that month or otherwise spend your whole life singing about getting “Money for nothing and your chips for free…”

I might be out of touch, but these kids will never fully appreciate their access to the world.

I glance over at hubby and see he’s thinking exactly the same thing as me, so we run with it and start singing…

Horrified, Miss Eight sticks her fingers in her ears and Miss 14 desperately fumbles to turn the volume up on her angry-girl-teen-pop-music, while we belt out: “You’re out of touch, I’m out of limes…”