This post is sponsored by Nuffnang.
***
Just let me do it myself! she exclaims, holding the mouse like a hostage.
I wasn’t trying to take the mouse off her, but she is impatient and frustrating and she assumes that that is what I was going to do, because that’s what I did when I was 10 and teaching her how to navigate a computer for the first time.
Okay, let me talk you through it. Click on the email icon.
Where is the email icon?
In the start menu.
Slowly she navigates to the start menu, me sitting at an opposite desk.
Where is it? I can’t see it.
I click through on my computer and look.
There, at the top.
Her frustration rises and so does mine. This is the most annoying thing I’ve ever had to do and she just won’t listen. She’s like a toddler, yelling I can do it my OWN self, and I just want to calmly state that yes, of course you can, but geez, you need to listen to me talk you through it!
This was how it started, all of it. When I started college, my mother came with me as a mature age student. She’d been wanting to go back to school for a while and I’d been nagging her. Finally, it paid off and there we were, on opposite sides of a desk in the library, glaring at each other.
Never mind, she snapped. I’ll get S to show me later.
I can show you now Mum, you just need to listen!
I stood up, to stand behind her.
Veronica! She growled. I can do it myself! Don’t take the mouse off me!
Again, it was like a hostage situation.
I wasn’t going to take the mouse. I was going to point to where you needed to click.
ARGHHHH!
Eventually, we decided that instead of killing each other, we would let S show her how her email worked. S did, and Mum wasn’t worried about having the mouse wrestled from her grip. Not that I was going to anyway.
(And not that I did, although she claims otherwise, I maintain that her memory is flawed by the fear of having the mouse taken off her. I might have had to sit on my hands an awful lot, but I didn’t take that damn mouse away.)
5 years later and while she will still ring me up to get me to talk her through something tricky, Mum is pretty much a computer expert. When I started this blog, I nagged her into starting one of her own. Over 2 years later, her blog is still going strong. In fact, she was one of the finalists for Best Australian/NZ Weblog 2010.
I don’t think she’s ever gotten over the fear of having me take the mouse away though.
***
It seems we were ahead of our time, with computers and blogging. I was teaching Mum how to use a computer 10 years ago and we nearly killed each other.
Nowadays, there are things like The Digital Mums Campaign: helping to teach mothers how to use email, the Internet and social networking to keep in touch with their children in today’s online world.
I would have killed for something like that, it wouldn’t have gotten me sent to my room nearly as often! Mum and I might be ahead of the times, but I’m pretty sure other mothers are still sitting in front of their computers, holding a mouse hostage and telling their children to just let me work it out myself!
The Digital Mums Campaign is active over on Facebook and they talk about mothers, social networking and keeping in touch. I wonder if you’d like to click over and become a fan? You can probably find me over there, talking about my mother who has managed to outshine me in the digital world this year!
I usually know what I’m doing on the computer as well, and hubby still tries to wrest the mouse away from me occasionally. Don’t.touch.my.mouse!
Oh I giggled reading that.
You were so trying to take the mouse off me young lady. And then you used to go clickety click with your clever fingers and I didn’t have a clue where I was or how I got there.
There was a time I could only think when I had a pen in my hands. Now when I need to write I can’t think straight unless I am sitting in front of my computer.
Thankyou for teaching me how to use a computer sweetheart, just don’t touch the mouse.
you ladies are way too cute!!
p.s Vonnie I just clicked on the link and went over and became a fan of the digital Mum’s campaign and there is some interesting stuff there, thankyou sweety xox
My dad and I are just as bed… as soon as Dean says the exact same thing as I did, everything’s fine. Drives me up the wall!
Fanned btw. 😉
My mother does all the email stuff (bearing in mind here Veronica I am 45 so that makes your mother a whole lot younger than mine). She does not do anti virus or computer maintenance tasks but I think thats because its boring. She has a PHD and I just have a whole load of unsavoury history.
You wait until your daughter is ten thats all I can say. You will eat your hat!
I remember when my K was trying to help me understand stuff, she say you just do this then this then this and there you are. She’d be speaking and typing at the speed of light and I’d be asking her to repeat it all in step by step form as I WROTE IT DOWN! I git the email sorted pretty much immediately, surfing the internet wasn’t too bad either. But searching for specific information? Hah! (now I google and go from there). Then there was the time on my very first computer where I managed to construct and sens an animated new years eve greeting by email. It had little gnomes dancing up and down, balloons and streamers, whistles blowing; to this day I can’t remember where I found it or how I modified it to suit. Same with things like burning a cd, or creating or modifying a playlist and putting it on my i-pod,now I can do it, but the first time was a fluke and I couldn’t remember how I’d done it. I used to be afraid to try stuff in case I “broke” the computer, now I’m more game to try stuff. And there’s still K to talk me through it. Having a look at the digital mums now.
Grrr!! Typos!
lol
That’s cute 🙂 My mum isn’t so bad, but my Dad is worse. He thinks a computer can do ANYHING. I’ve spent hours trying to show him that a computer doesn’t do everything, but still he seems to think otherwise. He’ll spend hours trying to make it ‘do’ something which I know it can’t do. Grrrrrr.
Remember how happy I was when we finally got that bloody lap top hun?.
Fab post, as always! 🙂
I nominated you for a blog award. I was to nominate seven Creative Bloggers and I definitely think you are creative. You’ve got such a wonderful way of telling stories that evoke emotion. You make us think, ponder, cry…and laugh our butts off. xoxoxoxo
When my daughter was six she figured out how to take pictures on my cell phone before I did. Gah!
Aw, yeah. The whole ‘on my own’ thing. Max says, “I want to do it sam!” (‘Sam’ is the Polish word for ‘alone’). Yet another consideration when naming our boys in Poland: I LOVED the name Sam, but was told that I was essentially banishing my child to a life of loneliness if I named him that. So, no Sam. Boo.
I just found your blog through Becky. The comment you left on her post was absolutely hysterical and I had to find your blog! I can’t wait to read more!
Sounds a bit like the husband trying to explain something to me. I’m glad you and S helped her along, otherwise I wouldn’t know her. Imagine that.
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