No, I didn't drop dead. Well, almost. As I mentioned in my last post, my younger two were sick. Then, of course, my oldest had to get it once the other two were well, since children in the same house can never get sick concurrently, despite your encouraging them to share lollipops (no...really..I've never done that...). So I had been grounded at home with at least one child for almost two weeks when, despite my possibly shortening my life with the amount of bleach I was cleaning with, and sloughing off ten layers of epidermis with all the hand washing, I myself came down with the plague. Experienced as I am with illness now, I knew I needed antibiotics, and like a junky, did not go to my regular doctor, but rather, the urgent care, so I could dupe the poor sucker straight out of med school into giving me a prescription, telling him my kids had all had it, when my strep test came back negative. It was so easy, I wondered if I possibly could have walked out with a dozen Percocet and some Ambien to sell on the black market. Disturbing.
Anyway, while we were home, the kids and I were doing some serious interfacing with technology. I had such cabin fever and had watched Cars 2 enough times to start wondering things like how cars reproduce. By the time #1 was home, I was already pretty drained. So I gave in on an issue we have been struggling with a for a few months now and let her start using her email account. She caught wind of the fact that she had one, after H set up the account for the Kindle Fire Santa brought her, and had been pestering us non-stop for permission to email her pals. What they could possibly have to say to each other after spending seven hours together is beyond me, but I seem to recall my father asking me the same thing in high school after I had been on the phone with my best friend for three hours. But there were boys involved at that point, so there was already complaining to do.
The first night, I had to correct her misconception that email is like instant messenger, as she huffed impatiently, waiting for her friend's reply. Then I had to stop her from using twenty point font, followed by the explanation that typing in all caps is the online equivalent of shouting. Don't even get me started on the emoticons. Oh, why do I know what font she's writing in and that she abuses smiley faces? Because I read her every damn email, that's why. She's nine. Let her get to an age with two digits and we'll talk about "privacy". When her friend did answer her, and she was crafting her response, I looked over her shoulder to see the number two and the letter "B" in her sentence, as in, "It's going 2 b so much fun!!!!!!!!", and a little part of me died. My daughter had become one of the abbreviating masses.
Being the text-a-holic I am, I completely understand the desire to stay within the one hundred and forty character limit, and use these abbreviations myself with my friends. All except "LOL". I don't know why, but it seems so fake to me. Give me a "Ha ha ha" any day. And I understand being in a rush, and texting "np" for "no problem" is all H can do sometimes when he's running to make a train and I'm harassing him to pick up milk (or wine) on the way home. But I think this need to whittle every sentence down to its barest bones is an infection that is going to spread and threaten the very way we express ourselves. Anyone over the age of twenty knows when and when not to use "thx" ot "ttyl". At least we hope. As I have lamented, some of these people think it perfectly reasonable to pull out a phone during a wedding and text. Our children though, are being raised in a world where you're and your can neatly be covered by "ur", and "tonight" is spelled with an "ite". Will these kids even know hoe to write a business email that includes full sentences, punctuation, and no creative use of semicolon and parentheses? Or am I the email equivalent of my father who insists letter writing, cursive and all, is a dying art?
I couldn't help myself. I had to talk to her about it. She knows I read her stuff, so that wasn't an issue. I tried to be diplomatic, but that not being my strong suit, I told her typing that way reminded me of those girls who use "like" all the time and end every sentence with an upward intonation, making it sound like a question and did she want to sound like that? Of course I got a "Moooom" response, but I just had to say it. I know I should let her express herself, but should I let her sound like a dimwit?
In the end, after much haggling, we made a deal. She could sound as dumb as she wanted with her friends (when have I ever been one to mince words?), but when emailing family, she was to use proper grammar and spelling. I figure that's a way to keep her in practice and ensure her college application cover letter doesn't include a single OMG or her expressing her desire "2 B accepted".
God help us all.
1 comment:
My mother is an English teacher. I love to write. My oldest (age 4) could write his name at 3. However, my 13 year old neice, can't TALK with out saying OMG. It's the same number of syllables as Oh my Gosh. Seriously.
I am with you. My kids will learn to write words out completely. I know they have brains, I want them to use them.
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