Yes, that is a picture of my cell phone, which until recently I thought was pretty cute with it's sparkly purple shell...very fancy. That was until I was informed by My Wonderful Husband (who has the same phone minus the sparkly purple shell) that his college students laughed at our "ancient phone". News to me. Anyway, I thought it was fitting that this be the picture today to illustrate the conversation that I had with my children at dinner tonight.
The Princess was telling me that they watched a movie today in school about the invention of the telephone and she says, "it was invented by two people - one guy whose last name was Bell and one guy whose name was Thomas". I said, "Yes, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison."
So The Bear then asked who invented the cell phone - to which I had to admit I didn't know. (which was met with surprise by my children as I had just finished telling them earlier that I know everything... but I digress...) (By the way - I researched it and Dr. Martin Cooper invented the modern day cell phone. - see kids, even when I don't know something - I go find out.) ;-)
What I told them at the time, however, was that cell phones were still a fairly new thing in the big scheme of things. While they know no different having been born in 2003 and 2005, cell phones haven't been something everyone has had for a very long time. I went on to tell them that I didn't get a cell phone until 2004. At this bit of information The Princess's mouth practically drops and she says, " YOU DIDN'T HAVE A CELL PHONE IN COLLEGE!" She was clearly in shock. So I went for the knock out, "No, and I didn't have a computer in college either." The Princess responds by shaking her head and lamenting the fact that it was like we had "no technology". At this, The Boy says, "Oh man, did you even have a T.V?"
Now there is something that I learned a long time ago working with kids that has been reinforced by my own children. They have no concept of time or age. Clearly, if I lived in a time with no cell phones or computers, I must have also lived with dinosaurs. So I took it upon myself to clear up some of these misconceptions and explain to them how someday they will be sitting at the dinner table telling their kids that they never had whatever new invention their kids now think is indispsensable.
To The Boy's question about a TV I informed him that while yes I did indeed have a TV growing up and a color one at that, his grandparents would all remember getting their first TV and also when they finally added color. What I didn't think of at the time of this conversation but will include now for my children - I had a TV, but it had limited channels, that you changed by getting up and turning a dial and I couldn't "demand" any show at any time. Oh the humanity!
"What about cars?" they ask. Now at this point, I am getting insulted and wondering if they are playing with me..but I tell them (again to give them perspective) that while I had cars and their grandparents had cars, their great grandparents would remember the early days of cars. At this point, The Bear suggests that maybe someday they will have flying cars. I see I will have to reintroduce them to The Jetson's - that pipe dream has been around awhile - but who knows....
After all of these startling revelations, I explained how everything that we have now at one time had to be invented and up until that point people managed without whatever it was they didn't know they "needed". I fear that my kids will never truly understand that concept as things progress so quickly now that not only do we "need" each new invention, we "need" a new one every year to keep up. Clearly, based on the "ancient" phones that My Wonderful Husband and I still lug around, we don't completely buy into all of it, but I say that as I type on my laptop, upload pictures from digital camera, read off my kindle, check facebook, and Pinterest and well you get the idea....
In the end, I told the kids that maybe they will invent the next big thing that people can't imagine living without which started a conversation about more flying cars, robots that blow your nose for you and other such interesting topics. All in all, an interesting dinner conversation.
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