All of my kids are rentals. They always have been. Which is just my adorable way of saying I have no children of my own. Not one. It also means that I can always give them back. I can get them all wound up, feed them sugary delights, let them experience their free will and then completely drop them off at home with their not so unsuspecting parents.
It’s the price one pays for having an hour or two of freedom from this…
Apparently, it’s well worth the price.
My first couple of rentals came along when I was still really just a kid myself. I loved babysitting my nephews but they were a handful. Now those two boys have sons that tower over me.
Over the years I accumulated more nieces, nephews, God children and some that just called me “Aunt”. I played with them, fed them and put them to bed. I would take them to fairs, plays and shows. We would sing silly songs. I would tell them stories and we would make things. There was a time when I spent endless hours making them gifts. I always wanted them to have something special to keep that I made especially for them. Sadly, only a few of those things have survived. They made me gifts. I still have every one. I have files of pictures drawn and painted. When they come off the fridge they go into a file. Other things, I proudly display in my home.
I would also buy them books. I love to read and I wanted to share that with them. I’m proud to say that most of my rentals do love to read and are more grateful for those books now than when they received them.
Now that I am a Grand Aunt, things are different. The biggest change, the one that brought on almost every other change, is the computer. Everything we now own is computerized. I like to think I keep up pretty well, but at Christmas I got a real awakening. One of my grand nephews took the hand-written card I had attached to his Christmas gift over to his father and asked him to read it to him. I know my grand nephew can read, my penmanship isn’t that bad and it wasn’t a longwinded note (I know, hard to believe) so I asked him why he’d asked his dad to read it.
Grand Nephew: I can’t read writing.
Grand Aunt: What?
Nephew: They don’t teach you how to write in school anymore.
GA: Well, I had heard that, but for some reason it didn’t occur to me that they wouldn’t be able to read it.
N: If they don’t teach him how to write it, how are they supposed to read it.
GA: How does he write his name?
GN: I print it.
GA: No. I mean how do you do your signature.
N: He prints it!
GA: So if he signs a legal document at some point in his life he will just print his name?
N: That’s right.
Then he read the card to his son, “With love, Aunt Michelle and Uncle Paul”.
Over the years I have learned to keep my mouth shut when it comes to rearing children lest I hear those heartbreaking words, “you don’t know, you don’t have kids”, or a reasonable facsimile. How has this happened? I’ve always considered my signature part of my personality. Half the clothes kids wear today have someone’s signature on them.
I guess if I want to communicate with anyone younger than me I am going to have to pick up my printing skills. I have visions of future scientists uncovering some old Christmas cards and trying to decipher them much like we do the hieroglyphics in the caves from prehistoric man.
I feel so old!
😔
And he said, “Who the heck is Uncle Paul???”
Here’s a gobsmacker: I can read cursive handwriting perfectly well, but I can only print! I relied too heavily on the computer for too long for writing stuff. The keyboard was easier. Now all I have left is my signature — I can whip that out on demand. For now.
Oy. Technology is so very discouraging
At least you have your signature. I don’t know how it could be done but I think they should figure out a way to teach the kids how to do their signature. I really bothers me they don’t know their own signature.
The irony is that the touch pad screens and Wacom boards & styluses means that writing is back in – just augmented by software.
The real issue here is that they keep stuffing more and more skills into the curriculum, as if the classroom teaching time is a Tardis, bigger on the inside than the outside.
Even at the secondary school level, before I retired, we saw this happening, both within our own subject areas, and in the way the grade nines were being prepared. Kids are not widgets and teachers are not assembly workers, but they (powers that be – government) listen to business and societal expectations, and then try to create efficiencies by altering leaning skills time frames, and constantly re-prioritizing necessary skills & knowledge.
Mind you, I look at what has happened to the economy, and I wonder what is the point. So many of the hard working well educated & well trained young people are struggling to find work and start adult lives. The current job opportunity outcomes turn the teachers and the education system into liars. Attain these skills and knowledge, develop a flexible learning & adaptable workplace attitude and you will be a successful contributing citizen in our society. That’s what we told them. That’s the context within which we taught them. My wife was talking with another retired teaching colleague – he was head of the Work-Place Education Department – even his own daughter is still struggling to get permanent employment.
Something got messed up – they changed the rules and didn’t bother to tell anyone.
My rant for the day is done. 😀
Your post was very thoughtful & warm . Well done. 🙂
I appreciate your rant. Consider me schooled. I still think I might try and teach the kids how to write their name on there own.
Yes – and if the whole paper notebook thing is too alien/traumatic/exotic, then use a tablet. 🙂
You have a heart as vast as Wyoming, my friend.
Dog bless you, young lady.
You are my favourite person in the world just for calling me “young” lady. 😉
You are young!
This explains your comment on the gingerbread post about needing a memory book for aunts! Yes indeed! They are all lucky to have you in their lives.
Thanks Renee. I think that memory book would help. Of course I would have to print in it.
Those rental kids of yours have been lucky to have you renting them. Soon paper might be gone, too, and where do you write your signature then? A screen just makes everything look equally bad….
Every time someone asks me for my signature on one of those screens I look at it and think, “how on earth does that look like my signature?”
It sounds wonderful what you’ve done. Looks like a nice party you were having. Children are a joy be be around, they find joy so easily, and so bring us joy – which we share back with them – and I guess that’s why we all like it. Cheers!
They can also break your heart, Bumba. As I have watched those kids in that picture grow older there have been times I was actually glad I never had any.