Life offers a lot of opportunities to see differences, but I am mostly interested in similarities. That makes the intergenerational conversations with my son so much fun. He inspires me and makes me think, time and time again.
I call it intergenerational conversations with my son, as he is 44 years younger than I am. He offers me interesting perspectives, just by talking. Last week, he surprised me by asking whether I had a color TV when I was a child. It was surprising because, in my mind, that was a given. So, I looked up the timeline of the introduction of color TV in countries, and indeed, my dad – always the techie – must have been one of the first to buy one and install it in our living room.
Television and YouTube as 3rd parents
As both my parents worked, the television was kind of a third parent to me. And as television was still growing, day television was limited to French and German channels. Which unconsciously helped me to pick up languages while in my 5 & 6th years (After that we moved to another place, and frequent moving provides my memory with nice age-pointers). I would then showcase my newfound language skills when going on holidays.
The fact that television was my third parent, is no surprise to me. But I never thought that my son would see YouTube as a third parent as well. So here we are almost half a century apart, yet facing similar contexts covered with a slightly different bit of technological varnish.
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