LJ Idol Season 7 Week 6 Not of Your World

[puppetmaker]

Dear Caroline,

This past Sunday you just turned 8 years old. I am amazed every day that I have such a daughter as you. I love watching you play with your toys, draw, read, do your homework, and so many other things.

I got to thinking the other day things that came into being after you came into being. Things just “Are” and always have been that to me still seem shiny and new and probably always will.

Take Movies for example. There were 3-D films in my day, heck before my day in your grandparent’s day. But the technology was cumbersome and only really worked for about a 1/3 to ½ the audience. The first 3-D film I saw with the new version of the technology was at Disney Hollywood (Which will always be Disney MGM to me) with the Muppets in 3-D which I love to this day, a fact you well know. You don’t remember a time before the choice of “do we see it in 3-D or 2-D?”

Or Lasers. You know that Pop-pop works with lasers. What you may not know is that he was there at the start of lasers. He remembers the big tables that they use for the large lasers that would fill a room. You tear off hologram stickers from toys and toss them like they are nothing but Pop-pop worked a lot with holography. You have seen and play with the holograms at their house including one of the first white light holograms ever. The laser pointer that you use to play with the cats did not exist when I was your age. I am amazed that I can buy for under 10 dollars something that use to cost in the thousands and 10s of thousands.

Or the iProducts in the house. You get bored somewhere and ask me for the iPad or if you want to play certain games you ask for the iPhone. Those items just are. Believe it or not, they came into being after you. In fact you were in Kindergarten when they came out. And it was a big deal. Bigger than a lot of people thought. The iPhone has changed the way we look at a phone and the computer. Sure we call it an iPhone but it is really a small computer in the palm of our hands. When I was a child, computers were huge machines that were housed in special buildings. I have watched the computer shrink from a large building to the palm of my hand. Then there is the idea of the touch screen which is really out of control now if you ask me. You are use to touching screen and having them react to your touch or the touch of the stylus. I am amazed that I can drag things with my finger around the screen. You draw on my iPad a lot and for you it seem perfectly normal, to me I am in awe as I watch you navigate your way through a picture that you are creating with your fingers.

Or Music. You asked me the other day what was in a cabinet under the TV. I told you a record player and you looked at me blankly. I showed you the turntable and explained how we use to listen to our music. I told you about audio tape and walkmans (which they aren’t making anymore). You know what a CD is but don’t understand why I just don’t download it from iTunes. I think how far we have come in terms of audio in such a short time and it is pretty amazing.

Your world is so different than mine. I tell you these things are you think I had a dinosaur for a pet. What world are your children going to grow up in? How ancient will our technology be to them? Will you tell them stories of the technology you grew up with? Will my time be not of their world?

Love,
Your Mommy

Comments

[beldar.livejournal.com]

I love this. While I can barely remember party-line phones, my young nephews and nieces won't know a time when everyone didn't have phones on their hips or in their pockets. And if it weren't for hip-hop, us oldsters would have thousands of records with nothing functional to play them on. (Glad that as a niche audiophile market, the turntable has made a modest comeback.)

And imagine how deprived the kids would feel if there were only three to four channels on TV?!

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

I almost wrote something about DVRs and DVDs and how you use to be a lot more limited in what you could watch.

Yeah, I grew up in Atlanta that had two PBS channels, ABC, NBC, and CBS along with Channel 17 and Channel 46 which were the independents. There weren't cartoons 24/7 or on demand.

[beldar.livejournal.com]

Though I risk this becoming the Monty Python "you think THAT's bad" skit --

I grew up in rural central Arkansas, with the big antennas on top of the house. For most of my childhood I had PBS, NBC and CBS, but the ABC tower was further away (which is why I missed a lot of their 70s hits and only saw early seasons of Happy Days in reruns). Dad eventually got a second antenna set, giving us four channels! Around my senior year a UHF station, which would later become the FOX affiliate, went on the air, giving us five. Mom still lives there and has satellite TV now -- with lots of channels.

[readinggeek451]

Channel 17 is, of course, the station that grew up to be TBS. As I recall, it mostly used to play really bad movies.

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

And Dark Shadows

[adpaz.livejournal.com]

So beautiful, Kath. It's a great take on the topic - one I wish I'd thought about doing it first. :) It really will be a different world as our kids grow.

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

That is one of the reasons I wrote this one early because I figured another mother or father would come up with the same idea.

Thanks for reading and how are the kids?

[sweeny-todd.livejournal.com]

heh! I sometimes turn to my friends, while I am holding my mobile saying "this is the future in my hands!" it is kinda exciting.

this is a great letter :-)

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

The one that Peter can't get over is real time video chat. Caroline knows her grandparents much better because she can see and hear them and has done so since she was very little. So when we go and visit she put them in the "people she knew and loved" category.

I do find it interesting that I can check the web from just about anywhere now.

[m-malcontent.livejournal.com]

It's wild. I grew up with 3 networks and 2 independent channels on TV. I had records and later cassette tapes. I played pong in an early arcade named The Gold Mine.

The next generation will probably mock the technology todays kids have too...from their self driving cars, and personal holographic 3-D movie projectors.

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

We had an early pong game. I should really see if we still have it but I am betting my brother has already snagged it.

I was rereading Fahrenheit 451 and we are so much closer to the idea of the TV screens that allow us to be part of the TV show now than we were even 5 years ago.

[readinggeek451]

I loved playing Pong on the TV in your basement rec room with the vertical hold that didn't work. :)

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Hey that added an element of surprise to the game *grin*

[basric.livejournal.com]

Very nicely done. And so very true.

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It is amazing what we are able to do now and what we will be able to do in the future.

[wherdafux-d-cat.livejournal.com]

Well done, plus nice take on the topic.

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I think that she had her birthday this past weekend got me to thinking about the past a little more than usual.

[wherdafux-d-cat.livejournal.com]

Your perspective on seeing her use and interact with the current bits versus what we had and did when we were the same age really set this off. If I were to try to write on the exact same thing, it just wouldn't fly. It couldn't be more than a 'this or that' comparison. You always have a deft touch in writing about people, especially Caroline, and this really shows it off.

And on a completely unrelated not, that pic of Fig makes me smile every darned time.

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

It's because of the evil kitten grin. That was just after I found her and cleaned her up so she was about 6 or 7 weeks old.

Thank you for the compliment. I really like knowing what people like about my writing.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

My big perspective on time was when I realized my grandparents had all been born before the Wright brothers' flight at Kitty Hawk, but I grew up never knowing a time before man made it to the moon.

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

See, I know you are younger than me. I think Sean might have some dim memories of the man walking on the Moon. I had vivid memories of watching it on TV.

At my high school we were the last class that Mr. Morgan taught that most of us were alive when JFK was shot.

History moves on. Think of all the children that have no memory of 9/11 now because they were too young. Probably now the child would have to be in middle school to have a clear memory.

[myrna-bird.livejournal.com]

This is the stuff of memoirs. Excellent job touching on those different advances in technology.

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Thank you. As I get older I think I get more amazed by what we come up with

[creature-girl08.livejournal.com]

This is all so true. Absolutely fabulous idea for the prompt.

[pricelessone.livejournal.com]

This was a wonderful read. And so true. Thanks for sharing it!

[fortitudehigh.livejournal.com]

I often think about the things that have changed in my lifetime, but it really shows the speed of change when you talk about things in your daughter's short life!

[bewize.livejournal.com]

Great piece and really interesting. Love the way you used the prompt!

[dreamchaser.livejournal.com]

It is unbelievable just how much things have changed, and will continue to change!!!!

[isis-lives.livejournal.com]

Beautiful piece. Yes, things have changed...and keep changing. You captured it well

[solstice-singer.livejournal.com]

I think about this sort of thing a lot, the way technology has evolved over the years, and how it has changed our society. In most cases, I think it's a good thing, but, in some cases, I wonder if, perhaps, it's gone a bit too far.

[amomentarythot.livejournal.com]

I remember when computers were giant hulking bulks housed in their own universe! And cell phones -- it still astonishes me how much people now depend upon them. I feel as though my land line is now a relic of the Creataceous era *shudders*

[nyxocity.livejournal.com]

Excellent take on the topic, and beautifully told! I often feel like this with our kids.

[fourzoas-reads.livejournal.com]

Every term the conversation I have with students about the technologies of my youth gets stranger and stranger. I feel truly odd telling them that we only had two phones, and that both had cords, and that if you were expecting a call, you had to be off the phone and waiting.

Lovely letter to your daughter!

[ellistrae.livejournal.com]

So very true and so well expressed. I am a child of the 80's, so I'm consistently impressed by the speed of technological improvements. I remember well the days of playing with my Atari, and when the Nintendo first came out, I thought it was the coolest thing EVER. Even that stupid robot thing that came with it that never worked the way it should. Very engrossing, and gave me a lot of great flashbacks. Great job and a unique spin on the prompt.

[lawchicky.livejournal.com]

Great entry! It's so amazing how many things have changed just within our own lifetime.