A wise sage, I think it was Superman, once said “The son becomes the father and the father becomes the son”. This historic bond between blood males has become the backbone of the family unit and when a shared passion unites them even further, this connection is made all the more unbreakable…
That is unless the passion is LEGO.
Continue reading “Play well my son, for tonight you go to bed with no supper.”
I like to think of myself as sitting right at the front of the technology bus, but something my daughter said to me over the weekend sent me all the way to the back holding my head in shame.
“Have we got a Webcam?” she asked. “No” I replied.
Now when it comes to social media I’m right in the thick of it. A tweet here, a status update there, but I’d never been one for the real face-to-face digital experience. I knew that somewhere we had an old Sipix Snap digital camera that could double-up as a webcam, but it was probably buried under a mountain of discarded tech and besides it was rubbish anyway. So, without thinking I told her I would get one.
Like any normal geek dad I always feel the kaleidoscope of Butterflies flitting around my stomach whenever one of my children picks up my iPhone. I know that I’m supposed to be leading by example and extolling the virtues of sharing, but it’s hard when all I can see is my beloved phone bouncing off the kitchen tiles and having to spend the next few weeks Tweeting through crazy paving.
This particular dilemma has been made impossibly worse by the recent purchase of Talking Carl. If you’ve not heard about Talking Carl then I shall try to explain. Carl is a beautifully rendered orangey-red square with a funny voice. He laughs, shouts, growls and repeats anything you say via the iPhone’s microphone.
My children are always a source of both great amusement and overwhelming frustration, but what strikes me most is there apparent lack of self-belief and determination.
They both certainly have an abundance of confidence, but this mostly manifests itself as arrogance and when faced with an actual challenge they are soon very keen to give up and consider the task impossible. What has happened to lead a generation into such a terrible crisis? I feel as parents that we have always shown them unwavering support in what they have chosen to do and been very careful to make them aware that certain things take time to realise, yet still they get frustrated by the simplest of obstacles.
