Our family is so high-tech

When I was kid I wanted beads for my bedroom door. Like the beads one of the Bradford girls had hanging on her bedroom door on the TV show Eight is Enough.

Of course they wouldn’t have afforded me much privacy. And when I was rebelling against my parents and wanted to slam my door for dramatic effect, I don’t think the clinking of beads would have translated to “take that.”

When I was a kid an apple was also just something you ate. It wasn’t the name that some celebrity had chosen for her daughter and it certainly didn’t have anything to do with things you plug into your ears so you can listen to music, or phones that connect you to the entire world with wireless technology.

Today one of my kids has an iPod. The same one wants an iPhone.

At least the other one still prefers his apple peeled and cut in pieces.

Who knew when I was a kid that my kids would be inundated with so much technology? I suppose having watched Buck Rogers growing up that I knew it was on the horizon. But when I was younger I also thought our family had hit the high-tech lottery when we bought our first VCR with a remote control. I’ll admit it was a drag that the remote control was connected to the VCR with a wire. But still, you could stand a good 10 feet from the VCR and get it to play your movie without having to touch it.

Last week my son, after a while of begging, finally convinced me to let him have MSN Messenger on our home computer. But I am strict with my rules. He’s only allowed to be online with people he and I know. So far his friends include a few school chums, a couple of hockey buddies, his grandpere Alain and his uncle Steven. He wanted to add me to his MSN list. I told him I didn’t want to be on MSN.

“But if you had it I could talk to you when you’re upstairs and I’m downstairs,” he said.

Okay, isn’t that a bit of technology overkill?

I can picture the scene now. He’s in the downstairs den and he messages me: “Mom, where R you?”

Me: “I’m in the living room upstairs, why?”

Him: “Can you get me a glass of water?”

Me: “Why can’t you?”

Him: “Be-cuz I’m downstairs.”

Fascinating stuff, eh? How did we ever get by without this technology?

But I am glad to say there is still room in our family’s lives for the olden days. I found this out while sitting on the couch across from the television. I couldn’t find the wireless remote control for the VCR and accused my youngest son of having misplaced it.

“What are we going to do now?” I asked him. “How will we turn on the VCR?”

“Why don’t you just do it the other way?” he asked, and walked across the room and pushed the button with – gasp! – his finger.

Yeah, I guess that works, I told him, but maybe I should email your brother downstairs and see if he knows where the remote is.