I’m not saying my powers of observation magically went into turbo-boost. I didn’t suddenly develop some poetical acuity that enabled me to see eternity in a grain of sand. I didn’t spend hours eyeing squirrels and loons, or doing play-by-play for ant wars, as Thoreau did at Walden Pond. (“They fought with more pertinacity than bulldogs. Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat. It was evident that their battle-cry was ‘Conquer or die.’”) I had my kids for that.
But placing myself deliberately outside the loop was an eye-opener, nonetheless. In every sense.
April 1, 2009
Allowance day via automated transfer. S. blew the lot on new phone: ninety bucks got her “the second cheapest Nokia” (as first cheapest out of stock) and ten dollars’ worth of credit (200 texts or 200 brain cells, whichever comes first).
First SMS to Andy in UK, who replied, “Please, please tell me this is Sussy!” Sweet! Still struggling to get my black-and-white head around concept of trans-hemispheric texting. “I don’t get it. How can you afford that?” I demanded to know. S. glanced at Anni and smiled an indulgent, what-do-you-expect-on-the-dementia-ward? sort of smile. These Rip Van Winkle moments are killing me.
April 2
S.’s phone credit GONE. Finito. 200 texts in 24 hours.
April 5
Living-room coffee table, once so “adult” (expensive mags, coffee-table books, artful objets ...), now a cross-generational mish-mash of Scrabble, sax music, pads and pens, textbooks, empty Coke cans. I like it.
Funny how nobody ever “lived” in the living room before. Then again, we never “familied” in the family room either. We surfed there.
S. and A. heading out now for McDonald’s to do homework. WTF?! I explode. Apparently they have Wi-Fi there, and anyway—as everyone keeps reminding me—“THIS WHOLE THING WAS YOUR IDEA!” It’s a big event now, homework. Fake tan. Outfits. Extensions. Beg to be driven there. (“We ARE doing homework, Mum. And after all ... THIS WHOLE THING WAS YOUR IDEA.”)
April 8
New sax endurance record: four hours (between lesson, practice, and jamming with friends). Improvising to “Cantaloupe Island” tonight, B. morphed from kid with talent to pro. It wasn’t practice. It was ... music.
Parent-teacher conference at S.’s school. Hate these. The place seethes with f/t mums with manicures and tennis-club calves—earnest, high-earning couples with luxuriant heads of Liberal Party hair and high-thread-count daughters. Literally feel like a migrant.
Met S. in library, where I discovered her writing her English essay. OMG. (Usual work mode: propped on pillows in bed, surrounded by drinks and snacks, her hands flying over the keyboard like some invalid virtuoso.) All teachers spoke of “big improvement” in work habits and results since the start of term—i.e., two weeks before being rendered screenless. Coincidence? I think not.
April 9
Last day of term. S. slept from two (when she got home) to six, when I did. Then out for junk food—an event to mark the start of holidays—and home for Scrabble (S.’s suggestion).
“Is it okay to use this ancient dictionary?” S. asks dubiously, picking up our big red Webster’s. Did she think it would be in Elvish or something? “It’s hardly ancient,” I point out. “It’s a paperback. I got it in high school.”
Long pause. Could see them looking at each other as if to say, “Exactly ... loser.”
Lasted three turns each. B.’s attention span particularly worrying. “Is CEM a word?” he kept asking. I reminded myself to keep nose-breathing.
Later, S. hauled out old bag of photos for an impromptu session of Facebook 1.0. They were mostly b.c.—first marriage, first home in Australia, early couple, friends, etc. Stunned and almost bewildered by the evidence that I HAVE LIVED MY WHOLE LIFE HERE. That I was A BABY when I arrived. A tall baby, admittedly. I thought I was so old back then. I thought I knew everything. I’d never even heard of my pelvic floor.
April 10
Good Friday, or “Crap Friday,” as Bill has suggested rebadging it. HUGE holiday here in the world’s most secular nation, for reasons lost, like the holy grail, to the mists of time. It’s the kind of day, alas, that media were made for.
Figuring out what to do with literally nothing to watch OR buy a challenge even for me. Eventually decided to redefine myself as “sick” (as opposed to simply “unpleasant”) and took to bed to read and drowse.
B.’s ill temper approaching Old Testament levels—so young and yet so grumpy!—relieved when he lit off early for Matt’s after a fight with me in which he demanded $50 worth of reeds. Returned early afternoon with renewed restlessness.
“I need technology,” he moaned. I nodded sympathetically and patted his back.
“Do you want a hot water bottle?” I asked. The look he gave me was not pretty.
Eventually resorted to reading to him, as he claims to be “between books.” Lolita evidently defeated him after a few chapters. “The French bits were annoying. And I like books where something happens.” LOL!!
Eventually handed over my beloved Sedaris. Anything for peace!
April 11
Did Easter shopping, dyed eggs, and made chocolate bunnies with Suss. S. and A., in their boredom, sang karaoke hymns and washed each other’s feet—“What? We learned it at school”—and convinced Bill they’d cowritten the Sydney Carter hymn “Lord of the Dance,” which he promptly pronounced “crap.”
April 12
Easter Day. Welcome happy morning!
“Only that day dawns to which you are awake,” etc. Suss up at eight-ish, came in bed with me to read papers (she reads papers now, speaking of justification by faith) and leaf through God Stories— inspiring tales of divine intervention, and a ripper read. At nine a.m. she reminded me it was time for church.
She is messing with my head now.
Walked to St. Paul’s—gorgeous, hot morning, mercifully brief sermon—then back to discover A. & B. happily munching basket contents for breakfast, B. having written me a “sorry” note for yesterday’s sullenness, complete with tacky Jesus sticker. Later, in honor of the day’s festivities, allowed girls to take videos of themselves dancing. All sat down and attempted to play Tiddlywinks (“It’s hard!” Suss cried).
After lunch, when Mary and kids came, Sussy and Torrie (aged fifteen) got out the watercolors, while Anni and Ches walked to the beach with B., who called later to request a sleepover (and enjoy brief resurrection experience with the DS, no doubt). Filled with the spirit, and quite a bit of Semillon Sauvignon Blanc, I said yes.
April 14
From The Telegraph:
“The fifty-year-old singer, a known health fanatic, would spend up to four hours a day in the gym before taking her children to Kabbalah religious meetings, according to friends. Breakfast was low-fat smoothies and suppers would consist of steamed fish and vegetables, while television was regulated because Madonna believed it harmed her children’s development.”
S. excited to learn that Madonna’s kids don’t watch TV either. “I didn’t know you liked Madonna,” I say. “I don’t,” she replies. “She’s a creepy loser.”
Sometimes I feel exactly the same way, minus the compensatory thigh muscles.
April 16
Bill and Suss fistfighting over Lolita access even as I write. (NB: Suss takes French and now that she wants to read it, Bill has suddenly gone all postmodern.)
Monopoly tonight with B.’s friend Jake, B., Torrie, and self (S. painting toenails in the peanut gallery) on battle-scarred board: Only original token left is sports car (stand-ins include old Parcheesi piece, wishing stone, button, and Trivial Pursuit pie slices)—at least I don’t get stuck with the iron anymore—and half the deeds are missing too (some replaced with handwritten facsimiles circa 1998—others simply memorized).
They say Monopoly reveals who a person truly is. Oh, God. Not that.
Bill morphs into consummate capitalist hyena, complete with Foghorn Leghorn accent (“Two hun’red dollahs? Ah say, ah
say, ‘Kitty litter’ son.”) Only Anni can Trump him at his own game—and I do mean Donald.
Am not unsympathetic. I too went through a Monopoly phase myself back in the summer of ’68 (till my folks called in the National Guard). Pretty much ever since, though, have nursed a secret loathing of all board games. So the truth is, The Experiment hasn’t so much forced the kids to play Monopoly. It’s forced ME to play (i.e., “THIS WHOLE THING WAS MY IDEA”).
Shocked that we had a blast. Especially loved it when Bill called Torrie at 8:15 p.m. to ask if she wanted to come over and play, and she arrived on our doorstep at 8:16. Afterward, B. and Jake (age sixteen) played Connect Four and built a tower of wooden blocks. What? No wading pool?!
April 20
Friends freaking re: my iPhonelessness. Twice this week have met anxious-looking loved ones for coffee. “Wasn’t sure you’d remember, and I had no way to contact you!” Interesting. Since when did it get so hard to remember a coffee date without appliances? “I am allowed to write stuff down,” I reminded them a little huffily. To be fair, I was ten minutes late on both occasions. But then, I’m always ten minutes late. A text to say so would be redundant.
Suss on landline to Maddi for 2.5 solid hours.
A. reports The Experiment a popular discussion topic at Sunday pub session. One guy her age admitted he’d spent ten consecutive hours playing an online game that day. Says you know you’ve hit rock bottom when you can see the Tetris blocks falling on the inside of your eyes when you shut them to sleep.
Pointed out (as if I hadn’t noticed) that her screen-free room is much neater now—less a giant laundry hamper, “more of a haven” is how she put it.
B. home early from Fairbridge Music Festival, where has been camping with friends. Evidently forgot to pack clothes, pillows, shoes, or food. Oops. Asked humbly for clean sheets and sank onto them, book in hand, cool jazz on the stereo.
April 24
Bill played Satie’s Gymnopédie No.1, on the piano, beautifully.
Later, he came home from Pat’s house with sheet music. Had spent the day learning it. I was floored. Practiced sax scale drills (major-minor-harmonic-melodic) in kitchen while I cooked.
Overwhelmed with admiration, wonder ... and guilt. If we’d been “experimenting” all along, where would he be now??
April 26
B. got a job today!! And I thought the Satie thing was a miracle. Fifteen dollars each and every afternoon after school to vacuum and mop a very small café. He is rich. I am happy.
A. and self on couches tonight reading (Why Men Marry Bitches and The Book Thief, respectively) and doing New York Times cross-words from 1987 (unearthed from an ancient diary).
April 27
S. to Angel Café—suitably gowned and coiffed—to work on personal project (is creating a magazine for teens ...). There for FOUR HOURS! When asked how much of that actually spent on homework replied, “Probably half.”
Lil sleeping over. She and S. in family room playing Monopoly, eating Tim Tams and drinking cocoa, and spritzing kitten with a spray bottle to keep her from pouncing on hotels.
S. tells me all her friends are watching the not-yet-released Hannah Montana movie on Sidereel but she has taken a vow of chastity (as it were) and will “save herself” till the cinema launch.On football permission form, B. filled out his name as:
Bill.Christensen
and mine as:
Susan.Maushart
What’s up with the dots? I ask him. What do you mean? he replies, puzzled. Isn’t that the proper way?
In other punctuation news ... Sussy’s friend Sean—completely OCT (obsessive compulsive texter)—now says the words “question mark” at the end of spoken questions. “Are you coming to the party, question mark?” he’ll ask, complete with rising inflection.
» 5
The Sound of One Hand Doing Homework
The greatest menace to progress is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge.
—DANIEL BOORSTIN, Cleopatra’s Nose
In a distant galaxy (like, six months ago), in the space formerly known as the family room, three teenagers are doing their homework—a task that requires wireless broadband with unlimited download allowance, six GBs of RAM, a terabyte of hard-drive space, five cell phones (two are just spending the night), three iPods, two printer/ scanners, and a color cartridge in a pear tree.
Everyone knows the Internet is a powerful research tool. Maybe that’s why using it to do homework is like exfoliating with an orbital sander. Like, sometimes it’s not good to go so deep. When all you want to know is why the Boxer Rebellion failed (and no, darling, it was not “something about the elastic”), and you get 32,700 results ... frankly, the mind Googles.
Sometimes it seems providing Internet access so your kids can do their homework is like using a vibrator to whip cream. It’s not only inefficient. It betrays a serious want of imagination.
Consider Sussy, ostensibly toiling away in there at an essay on e. e. cummings. At the moment, she has no fewer than nine windows active on her laptop. Six of them are online conversations that, leaving aside the missing punctuation, uncertain syntax, and sophomoric self-absorption, are off the topic entirely. A seventh is illegally siphoning off the latest episode of The Secret Life of an American Teenager , while an eighth is tracking an online auction for a pair of ... weirdos? “Weiros, Mum,” she corrects haughtily. “They’re birds.”
Oh, birds. Well, that makes sense, then. On the table, her cell phone, set to silent, squirms helplessly. I watch it with something akin to empathy.
Sussy—along with pretty much every other kid alive—insists that multitasking rules. The research sends a different message entirely. Although the latest neuroscientific reports confirm that media are changing the very structure of our brains, substantive evolution, like homework itself, is a painfully slow process. If Sussy were still writing that essay on e. e. cummings in 500,000 years (and at the time, the odds looked promising), she might have a good case. But for now? In our lifetimes? There isn’t the slightest doubt that monotasking kicks it.
Your kids will tell you otherwise. They’re not necessarily lying either. They may be absolutely convinced they can work just as well with half a dozen conversations and a couple of cyber-weiros squawking in the background as they can with silence. But these are the same people who think Micronesia is a software developer. Do we really want to take their word for it?
The Greek root of the word “technology,” techne, means “skill,” or “trickery.” Yeah, well. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. Maybe that explains why I was so often in a state of high alert watching the kids doing their, quote-unquote, homework within the media bubble our family room had become. Not that my anxiety ever did any good. Fretting over what, exactly, they were studying so intently—or with whom they were studying it—was my problem. Or so Anni would remind me, on those rare occasions when she’d break suction, visually speaking, from her laptop.
She was a straight-A student, give or take. Okay, so maybe there’d been a bit more take in the last couple of years. Year 12 had been spent almost entirely on exchange. At the time, that’s how I preferred to think about MySpace. Her absenteeism took its toll on her final grades, but she’d still done easily well enough to get into the university of her choice. Quibbling that the ninety wasn’t a ninety-seven was ungracious, but I did it nonetheless. “It’s not the grade that bothers me,” I’d stammered at the time. “It’s the . . . the effort.”
“What effort?” she wanted to know.
Well, exactly.
“But imagine the results you could have gotten if you’d tried,” I pressed. “If you took all the hours you’d spent on MySpace and MSN and poured them into Lit, or French.” She shrugged.
“I would have gotten higher test scores, I guess. But I would still have gotten into the same university, and I would still be majoring in journalism.”
“Can’t you think of any other differences?”
Finally
, I could see a light dawning in her eyes. “Oh, I see what you mean,” she said. “Of course. Why didn’t I think of this myself?
“I wouldn’t have had a life.”
I reminded myself at such moments of William Morris, the nineteenth-century English designer and visionary. Morris liked to stage personal and completely ineffectual protests against technological excess too. Once he sat on his top hat to show contempt for the Stock Exchange. I’m sure it made him feel better, briefly, too.
Morris was no Luddite. In fact, he made a fortune mass-producing his designs for fabric and wallpaper. But, also like me, and probably you too, he was convinced that “if we hand over the whole responsibility of the details of our daily lives to machines and their drivers,” happiness would elude us. People needed to learn how to restrain themselves around technology, he believed—in fact, around all household stuff. “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful,” he famously admonished.
At one level, most of the gadgets my children were employing to do their homework fitted Morris’s criteria to a tee. The minimalist MacBook with its sleek lines and whisper-soft keyboard; the twinkling, tinkling little Nokias; the petal-pink Nintendo DS with a stylus as delicate as daisy stem. Considered singly, they really were useful and beautiful. It was when you threw them all together and stirred them around that things started to get ugly and pointless. Not to mention chaotic and cacophonous.
The Winter of Our Disconnect Page 14
