The Self-Stirring Crew

I’m dubbing children of the 21st Century the ‘Self-Stirring Crew’ based on yesterday, when my nine year old shouted from the other room, ‘Mum! My self-stirring mug isn’t working!  Please can you stir it for me?’

FFS.  Perish the thought that you’d get up off your arse to get your own spoon or, even worse, actually put the spoon into the brew and move it in an anti-clockwise direction until the caffeine, sugar and milk are combined to the desired taste and consistency.

This was further epitomised when all three children spent an inordinate amount of time looking for the remote in order to ‘Turn it down!’, rather than walking over to the box and pressing the volume button.  You know, like we used to do in the ‘olden days’?  I doubt they know there even is a volume button on the side of the television.

It would appear that the wash basket has become a basketball hoop – shoot to score or shoot to miss.  If skid-smeared undies, crusty socks and worn-for-ten-minutes jeans make it inside – bonus!  If they don’t?  Oh well, better luck next time.  It’s obviously too much effort to lift the lid and put the stuff inside, especially as they know it will appear, as if by magic, clean and back in their drawers in the next couple of days.

The Firestick isn’t working!  Or rather, it’s taking time to load.  God help them if they still had a VHS recorder where they had to sit in front of the machine (no remote – I know!) and rewind and fast-forward for a good twenty minutes to get to the beginning of the film and still miss the trailers.

And the idea of actually leaving the house to travel to their nearest Blockbusters to rent out a film? What a complete waste of You Tube time that would be!

My thirteen year old is not especially happy that he can’t use Bluetooth on the plane and has to attach headphones with an actual, physical wire.  The inconvenience!  The plane crashing would be a small price to pay if only he could download new games and music or communicate with his friends on WhatsApp.

I would love to be a fly on the wall if he could time travel to the nineties to record the Top 40 on a Sunday evening, pressing ‘record’ and ‘play’ simultaneously without breathing too loudly in case the tape picked it up and having to stand, poised, ready to stop and start around the DJ waffling on in between songs.

M bought some headphones with a mouthpiece yesterday – you know, so he could talk to his friends through Fortnite.

The thing that left me actually gaping with disbelief was when his friend called for him and asked if he was playing out.  He declined but then five minutes later I heard him talking to someone from upstairs.  I thought he must have changed his mind and his friend had returned.  Stupid me.  Why sit in the same room when you can go back to your own house, turn on your own X-Box and start a virtual commentary with the person you’ve just been with and who lives on the same street?

My seven year old tells me he’s bored and can’t think of anything to do.  Then he goes on his tablet to watch some American brothers finding things to do with their free time like riding their bikes and skateboards, doing taste tests, gaming and spending time with their family.  He genuinely doesn’t get the irony.

My eldest is currently out at the park with his mates…no doubt sat on separate swings, checking Instagram and not talking to each other.

He’s going to be in for a shock when I inform him his self-cleaning room hasn’t worked whilst he’s been out and stunned when his feeding/cleaning/taxi-service/holiday-packing/drinks machine asks him if he’s had a good time.  Imitating human interaction?  The damn thing must be malfunctioning again.

Some things are soooo 1990s.