WARNING: Apologies if my blog title has attracted a lot of The Who fans! This is not my intention.
I’m 37, that’s right, a child of the 80’s… Hubba Bubba, scrunchies, slouch socks and cassettes…to name a few are my childhood memories. As I write I am already sidetracked by the time it used to take to sit down and make a mix tape, and I had a vast collection! Some admittedly were gifted to my first boyfriend (major cringe). Teacher by trade, I hold my hand up, yes it’s true us guys are renowned for not being hi-tec. In my day they could never find play on the video recorder. But I digress, back to the mixtape…the hours spent pressing play and pause and now a tap on the screen of i-tunes (so my none teacher friends tell me) and boom a whole album, any album right there in an instant!!
It amazes me. But it doesn’t stop there…The tv’s on demand button, the next day delivery (I do the annual subscription), click and collect shopping, pay at pump petrol…I could go on and on. I don’t dispute that these things are amazing and have really ‘helped’ in my family but it does make me wonder if the life of the millennial’s is improved?
For a while I have been having these nostalgic feelings. So I can’t help but compare to my childhood and the lack of technology. I remember being excited when channel 5 was launched, it’s true that there was in fact televised entertainment with sub 10 channels. Yes, we managed with four channels!! CITV was on for half an hour after school (I think it was longer, but I wasn’t a Blue Peter fan – don’t judge me please).
Like most (apologies if I offend) I have offered my phone to my toddler having a mental breakdown yelling ‘Peppa, Peppa’ in the trolley of a supermarket and although this is teaching the wrong message, I have done it. It’s immediate, it’s easy and they live in an ‘instant’ society where this, sadly, has become the norm. It does concern me that these little people will become impatient grown ups. How would they cope with four channels? Getting excited waiting for the new series of Blossom coming on channel 4 on Friday evenings? (No Daily Mail online spoilers and you don’t get to see it early just because you have a Netflix subscription)
Brookside was the best, and the most drama on Emmerdale was a sheep being left out in Jack Sugden’s field. I stopped watching Emmerdale a few years ago, it was probably replaced with ‘The Real Housewives of Cheshire’. What’s with TV just being about watching people? It’s all reality and gossip, which isn’t really ideal for boosting our feel good factor. ‘Happy Days’ on the other hand, never failed in this department. Getting back to ‘Soap’ land 2021, tune into Emmerdale for a bit of murder and drug pushing, so I’ve heard. No more Jack Sugden (which google kindly offered 47 000 results on how the character was killed off) But now it’s all about TOWIE. Who is wearing what? Going out with you? And hasn’t she piled on the pounds?
I promise you that I am not sat here in some granny slippers. I’m pretty normal. I appreciate all the advances that have made, hell I even have Instagram! (That my thumb seems to independently scroll through every half hour without engaging my brain) I just have some worries and I miss the simple life that I guess I was raised with.
I remember watching my Mum get ready for a date with my Dad (I might have even been making a mix tape) It’s so funny that as I write I even feel I need to add an emoji. Right there it would have been the wink, this even happens when I leave a handwritten note for someone. Anyone else? Back to the point…So they would have a date night. Mum wouldn’t have scrolled through ASOS for hours the night before, no brows done, no gels nails (a slick of polish obviously, she was hot – still is!) I remember the smell of her make up, hairspray and the bottle of Red Door perfume because I was in the moment. No need to order the mindful books. I just was because like most families then, we just were.
I envy how they must have gone for drinks and walked into a bar without thinking “Oooh there’s Cheryl from the school saw a selfie of her at the gym this morning” and “Dave who I used to work with four years ago is over there, seen his wife in a bikini in the Caribbean.” You get my point. I don’t have a personal Facebook account, I deleted it years ago after realising that I was wasting time I wouldn’t get back looking through people’s pictures, that then quickly turned into their aunty’s cousins wedding. Shortly after my ‘mindful awakening’ I replaced it with Instagram (right now I’m having that need to type an emoji just so ‘you get me’) So what’s with this addiction? Obsession? Curiosity of other people? Imagine if we sat in our living rooms and we were only concerned about the people who were sat there with us. How come we need to know that Elaine from the gym just checked into Canteen and Cocktails or that Cheryl Cole got her abs back after Bear (hi 5 Chez).
My mum baked alot, we would often come home to a crumble and custard. I’ve failed in culinary side of parenting, although I am trying hard now (hand over monkey eye emoji needed) She had a couple of Bero books, I have about 100 cooking channels but obviously whilst I’m watching Love Island on demand, stalking random people (shut-up we all do it!) putting Peppa Pig on the i-phone, downloading music, doing an online shop and googling how old Mary Berry is…I can’t fit in making desserts.
The pace is just so fast, anyone else want to press pause (on the Betamax) ?
I appreciate all the positive things that have been brought by the internet, gadgets, and so on (obviously as I wrote this blog on the popular page @selfishmother) but nonetheless it does make me worry about the habitual behaviours that I know I’ve developed. This need I see for having things instant, texts, deliveries, tv, etc. And it’s the unhealthy side of being a millennial that causes me concern…needless to say the thumb damage. I could waffle all day but I guess the bottom line is that the pace of life today seems so fast that I kind of want to press pause.
And being an 80’s kid, I will leave you with the wise words of Ferris:
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”
P.S – Aren’t camera phones amazing for capturing all those moments? Yet how come when I had to get photos developed I seemed to have a much larger photo album?