Musings of an iGen mom

As a parent in of an iGen child, do you want to know what I find completely mind-boggling? 

My nine-year old daughter is extremely smart. I mean, this kid has been using technology since before she could talk. 

I remember sitting in a cafe, with her in a stroller eating water-logged fishy crackers because she had no teeth, playing with my iPhone. She would hand the phone back to me when she had managed to get herself out of an app and say, “Momma? Phone?” 

She couldn’t say “please” or “thank you”, but “phone” she figured out no problem.

She knows her way in and out of our Google Home and Apple TV. Her favourite entertainment consists of watching YouTube,

making music videos on TikTok and experimenting with filters on Snapchat. She can survive a night of horror playing Five Nights at Freddy’s, battle bad guys in Fortnight and build 3D worlds in Minecraft and Roblox.

Oh. And did I mention she can bake a cake? That’s right. I can’t bake a cake.

She says she learned how to do it on YouTube.

I can’t even make Pillsbury Dough Boy cookies that you simply have to heat up in the oven, but she whips up a full-on-rainbow-coloured-unicorn-cake like she spent five years in culinary school.

But here’s the mind-boggling part. You know what my nine-year-old can’t do?

Socks.

Ask her to find a pair of matching socks and it’s like asking her to climb Mount Everest. It’s a puddle of tears and “I don’t know hooooooooooow…”

You would think the easy answer would be: who cares? Wear mis-matched socks then! But oh no. She won’t wear socks on her feet unless they match because she says they “feel different.” In a time where designing fashionable avatars online is the norm, some old-school life skills are ingrained in us I suppose.

So? We’ve come to a compromise. As long as she does all the baking for the house? I make sure I pair all the socks in the laundry. Win-win.