Conversations in the Car 2: In which a parent is berated by her eight year old for excessive computer use
May 25, 2008
Sally is eight. Sometimes she makes up little songs. I’ve already shared with you her song entitled “You eat your own crap and I think its gross”. Lately she has been singing a little ditty, the words are “I’m good at maths yeah”, and the tune varies from day to day. She has been selected for an advanced maths group at school and this has affected her self image considerably.
On Thursday morning I had to drop all four of my kids off at different locations for them to start their school days. Kat and Rosie to the bus stop and secondary school respectively, Emma to soccer training and Sally to primary school. Sally was the last one left in the car. She chatted to me from the back seat all the way from the soccer ground to primary school. She chose the topic. She was on my case:
“Mum, what percentage of your time do you estimate you spend on Facebook?”.
“Oh, that varies Sally. Sometimes I get sick of it and don’t go on for days. I’m having a patch at the moment though where I’m probably on everyday”.
“Yes, but what is your estimate for the average time you spend on it as a percentage?”.
“Oh, gosh, not that much. I’d say point two percent”.
Sally starts laughing in the back seat. I was sure she wouldn’t understand what point two was so I clarified my position:
“Point two is less than one. Its a fifth of a percent”.
Sally continues to laugh but through her laughter she manages to articulate the reason for her mirth:
“Point two of one percent!”, she says with laughter bubbling through her words, “that’s really funny because my estimate would have been seventy-five percent!”.
Oh god, I thought, she is a clever one. I laughed too, out of surprise and delight at how well she understood her percentages. Her perception of my computer use, however, has given me food for thought!
Here is a video sent to me by a close friend who is also on facebook. She is currently living in the UK. We share photos by sending them through the ether via facebook, we use the chat on facebook to sync times for phone calls. If you are on facebook too you might appreciate it:
I saw this video on Friday and had a good laugh (from twitter – another potential time suck.) Sally is a smart one. It does make one stop and think of exactly how much time gets taken by this things.
True. Its a little bit of ‘role reversal’ though. I’m not sure having my children policing me is what I signed up for!
My second daughter refers to her experience in an advanced maths class as “the year I was gifted at maths”. Sally’s estimate of 75% is very cheeky; children can be bossy with their parents and very critical, but it’s fascinating to hear their perspective.
Dear mirabella, your children have wonderful senses of humour! “The year I was gifted at maths” says it all.
Yes, parenting can include having to withstand criticism from one’s children. The girls generally comment when they think what I’m wearing is miss-matched. Even once before bookclub I changed my shoes because Sally decided I should. I had comfy boots on with a skirt and ended up wearing high heels because they met with approval!
Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation
Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Kindheartedness.
Hi Kindheartedness, thank you for your comment. Its possible that when I try to explain the point of the post it will lose impact. For your benefit, however, the point I suppose is that Sally used her eight year-old brain to estimate that I spent seventy-five percent of my time on facebook. She laughed at my estimate of point two because it was sooo much less than hers. She understood the mathematics of point two of a percent perfectly. The humour is probably in her taking the role of the parent and being super bossy and critical towards me.
The video at the end is beside the point.
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