Kids these days

Your retirement age is coming within sight? Right. You’re just the age I’m looking for. Please think back to your childhood. On those frequent occasions when you waylaid your elders and asked them for help with a toy, a gadget of some sort, did you ever have any doubts about their ability to get it working? Or, at least, that they would ‘know someone who can’. I think I see you shaking your head. No. When we were kids, grownups, although capable of being a bit of a nuisance, could do everything. Everyone knew that.

‘Dad, this train won’t work. The engine’s got jammed, see. . .’    ‘Grandma, I can’t remember how to do this bit. Would you, um. . . ?’    ‘Uncle George, see, I’ve got this bit right but it doesn’t. . . ‘

As we saw our grandchildren growing out of their infancy we expected to be able to return a few favours. In childhood we had been the learners; now, we were looking forward to being the teachers. But these children, silently, unobtrusively, were beginning to turn things upside down. Gradually, we realised that the pleas for help now came from our own mouths. These young, quick-witted, genned-up know-alls of eight or nine or ten were just about running things for us. And slowly we have come to terms with the strange situation. We sit and stare at our computers and get close to tears of frustration when the wretched thing does the opposite of what we intended. Things vanish from our screen for no apparent reason. We thump the desk and hurt ourselves.

Then, in comes the kid. ‘OK. Can I sit in your chair, please?’ They sit. With a little smile on their sweet faces they rattle away on the keys and swipe and click and whistle contentedly. They jump up. You thank them. The job is done.

One worrying thing remains: that little smile.

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About Paul

Retired, I spend my time on commissions for lyrics, writing words for singing. Choral works, congregational hymns, school songs - anything that allows people to sing together. Over one hundred published works and many broadcasts and CDs. An always-present liking for photography and pictures of all kinds was employed for a few years of freelancing and nearly 20 years of art-directing Kodak promotional print media.