"I'm Bored"
NO I’m not actually bored but this is something I constantly see my kids typing in their Facebook status line…OMG I am going to sound like my parents here…BORED? In my day we had basic cable and no Internet, THE HORROR! Even we were spoiled then at least we had HBO.
Conversation I recently had with my 12 Year Old Daughter…
Her (lying on couch flipping through on demand movies) Of course she didn’t say anything because God forbid she initiate a conversation with me.
Me: Hey what’s up?
Her: (Grunt)
Me: HELLO-what’s up?
Her: I’m bored! There is nothing on TV.
Me: WHAT? We have every pay channel known to man, we have at LEAST 500 channels (including HD) and you can’t find ANYTHING to watch?
Her: NO TV stinks.
Me: Go clean your room.
Seriously, now I know what my Dad meant when he said all those things that I thought were so stupid back in the day, because I must have sounded as pathetic. Although let’s be honest with each other, while we did have “basic” cable, I don’t remember spending too much time in front of the TV-I remember being outside actually interacting with the real world. Not growing a farm on Farmville and decking out my pad in Yoville.
I furnished my room with plastic milk crates…I know…I know… but some how a 14 year old kid in 1978 thought having a desk and shelves built out of milk crates was cool…but at least I was doing it in real life.
My oldest son spends a lot of time playing Call of Duty…killing imaginary friends online. I guess it’s the same thing we were doing back in the day. Using sticks to play war, if you were shot you had to count to 10 before you could get back up. But we were OUTSIDE my Sniper rifle was the long straight stick I found in the woods, not some weapon I found lying next to the dead avatar of some kid in the Baltics, who I’m sure in his language has told his parents an equal amount of time of how bored he is.
The status of one of my children was recently changed to “sooooooooo bbbbbbbooooooorrrrrrreeeeeeeddddddd” this posting was exactly 10 minutes after he had posted “I’m bored” For craps sake, we have Playstation, Xbox and Wii in my house, computers, as mentioned before cable TV, countless board games (which they say are BORED games), every toy they’ve asked for a Christmas, iPods, Blu Ray, Netflix…my God it is a smorgasbord of entertainment in my house. I’m almost ashamed to admit I have all this stuff…Look I like the modern comforts to, but trust me I am NEVER bored in my house.
Bored and unable to talk is how these kids will remember their childhood? Why do I mention that? My daughter was sitting right next to her cousin and instead of talking to each other they texted each other, What? No one talks any more.
I try to be a cool Dad, but man oh man I have trouble getting this generation…forget hoping I die before I get old, I just want to figure out my kids before I go senile.
