The PC Family

But Why Daddy?

Having a computer in the home can be a blessing – or not – depending on your perspective. My four-year-old son Jared opened my eyes to another obstacle that lurks on the parental horizon – one that effects us all in this "digital everything" age. The obstacle: the importance of handwriting in the age of the keyboard.

I remember the argument with Jared. He said, "Why do I have to write my name?" and I said, "Because it's a skill you need to know in life; writing is one of the most important ones." He replied, "I can write on the 'puter, and it looks better." He stunned me with his response. He knew he could choose a suitable handwriting font, spell his name and print it, and it did look neater. Obviously he really thought about it. I prepared to hand down the "father's ultimatum" -- "Because I said so!" but decided against it. Instead, I reached over and unplugged the computer. "Now write your name," I said. Jared looked at me like I slipped a gear or two and replied, "Why did you do that? I can't know, you turned it off!" I answered, "That's why you need to learn to write with your hands." His blank stare told me he still didn't get it. So I asked him if he could carry the big computer with him everywhere he went. He said it was too big, but he could carry mommy's little 'puter (a laptop). I felt like I fell into a bottomless pit of quicksand, and the powers that be were using the sand to make more computer chips. The "fathers ultimatum" was looking pretty good at this point, but I decided to give it one more try.

I said, "Look Jared, there are still places all over this world that do not use computers, like the beach, the park, and signing your name at the store to buy things. I had to write my name and yours down the last time we went to Discovery Zone." I really had his attention now; using 'DZ' was a cheap shot, but it worked. I continued, "There are all kinds of reasons to learn to write, just because computers make it easy sometimes doesn't mean we only use them. Someday there will be no computer available, large or small, and you'll have to do the work yourself – so you better learn now." Jared shook his head and said, "Okay, I'll learn to write my name – but can we go to 'DZ' first?" A good old-fashioned knee pounding at 'DZ' was well worth the progress I made with Jared, so off we went. On the way out, Jared said, "Hey, wait a minute, didn't you take Mommy's little 'puter to the beach last time?"

I pretended I didn't hear him.

Have I Gone Too Far?

I never thought we would reach the day in which we thought like computers, but in my family, I think it's here. I sent my teenage son to the store for milk, and my four-year-old son said, "How much? 24 Meg?" And it doesn't stop there.

When it came time to explain the concept of hot vs. cold, or extremes, to my then three-year-old son – you guessed it, I used the computer. After trying to explain extremes with mere words, my son acted like he got it, but could not answer any questions that proved he understood the concept – the classic toddler bait-and-switch. Since some Windows '95 programs use slider bars, software displays that represent minimum to maximum settings for a given component, I turned on the computer and pointed to the slider. "Imagine 'cold' is way down here (at the minimum slider setting) and 'hot' is way up here (the maximum setting)," I said.

You could see the light bulb flash above his head. Fireworks!

Since I was on a roll, I fired up a few more slider bars. We did 'top to bottom' and 'left to right'; 'soft to hard' and 'quiet to loud.' Now my son is four-years-old, and has two years experience (half his life) with computers. Using the computer to explain simple concepts was similar to the Jetson's maid Rosie; a familiar appliance the Jetson kids grew up with. My early successes created a personal desire to turn my son into a certified computer-geek zombie. Sure, I could go out and spend hundreds of dollars on cutsie computer programs, but that wouldn't teach him how to program the next generation of software. I have to admit – I was a little misled. In my push to create my own race of Borg, I actually pushed my son away. Gone were the nights exploring Putt-Putt's world, a bunch of programs centering around an adorable little car; gone was Virtual Sesame Street and the sense of accomplishment you get from watching your child learn something new.

In its place was Virtual Basic and Java code – to the point in which my son chose to go to the park rather than get near the PC. The nerve! How could I face my friends after all my bragging? Had I gone too far?

Enter my 15-year-old, or should I call him "Mr. Internet." One of my early successes, he actually "works the Web." I remember when I was 15. Meeting a girl was hit or miss – if she wasn't in my school, or didn't hang with a compatible "click" I never stood a chance. With an active Internet connection and AOL's Instant Pager, my son meets young ladies all the time, and met three just last week – quite a feat considering he's home schooled. One such young lady plans to travel from Louisiana to New Jersey to meet him. He gets more e-mail than I do. Now if I can only get him back to using the English language I learned in school. I asked him to put some rice in a container and mark it – when I went to make some I noticed the container read "www.brown_rice.com." Yes, we've gone too far.

Am I creating a race of Borg, or simply growing with the times? I choose the latter. Ten years ago it was hard enough to maintain friendships, let alone create new ones, across the country. With a PC and an Internet connection, you can play chess with a friend in Stockholm, fire imaginary bullets at another in Sydney, and do your taxes all at the same time. Think about raising a child with these global communication possibilities. You can use graphically rich programs to entertain and educate your children, and even turn them into zombies if you're lucky. But that's not news to you. The fact that a four-year-old can remotely reboot your PC just may be – but that's another story all together.

The "You Know What" Column

After hundreds of millions of investment dollars, the number one reason to surf the Internet is to download naked pictures. A recent personal experience involving my children really hammered the point home, and opened my eyes to the variety of information you can find. To this day, we refer to it as the "You Know What" incident, stealing the name from the popular Seinfeld episode, "The Bet". It went down like this.

One morning I was in a hurry to get a draft off to one of my customers. After booting my system and making a few last-minute edits, I printed it. The headline "How to 'You Know What' Without Your Hands" spewed forth from the printer. (Substitute 'You Know What' for massaging the beans and franks.) Quite a difference from the cable TV manual I expected to see. No time for a trial, but I had three distinct suspects. Suspect #1, my four-year-old son. Don't laugh, he's been using a computer for two years now. Suspect #2, my thirteen-year-old daughter. Hey, girls just want to have fun, right? It could happen. Suspect #3, my fifteen-year-old-son, guilty until proven innocent.

At dinner I brought up the subject of print queues, and how just about anything can be left in one, especially if someone turns off the computer to cover their tracks in the middle of printing something. I looked for guilty faces, but found none. Time for the direct approach. I asked the children who the last person online yesterday evening was and who downloaded some "instructions". In unison they all answered, "Not me."

Time to get even more direct. I excused my four-year-old and asked if anyone knew what masturbate meant. My four-year-old son piped up, "Ya! He's the bad guy on Power Rangers in Space." I thought he left the room, but at least I could rule him out. If he was smart enough to know what it really meant, and used the Power Rangers comment as a deflection – no court in the country would convict him. For what it's worth, he looked innocent.

Next, I turned to my daughter. She said, "Dad, you're embarrassing me!" I was on to something. I asked if she was embarrassed because she was guilty, and she left the table. I could have phrased it better. Last but not least, my innocent-until-proven-guilty 15-year-old. Suspect number one, if time spent online is an automatic indication of guilt. So I started the interrogation. My wife was off talking to my daughter – probably getting ready for a few questions of her own. I grabbed the evidence (very detailed instructions, I might add) and presented it. My son blushed – I had him dead-to-rights.

"Where did you find this," I asked. He said it just 'appeared on the screen' while he was surfing. I said to him, "The homepage just appears on the screen, everything else you have to find." The interrogation was fast becoming a round robin, so I decided to impose sentencing.

Two weeks loss of Internet privileges, not for downloading the instructions, but for not owning up when asked. He said, "You can't DO THAT. What about all my friends?" So I let him send a group e-mail message to his friends, and told him one of those "back in my day" stories about how we actually survived without video games and the Internet. He just laughed like I was making it up. Besides, the story just made me feel old.

Since the "You Know What" incident, I am more involved with my family's activities, both online and off. I know my children – and their online habits – much better now. There are a other few routes I could have taken, for example, add software that restricts the sites my children can visit, or password-protect access to the Web browser, etc. Neither of these would solve the problem. Let's face it, the information is out there. You can burn books at the local library all you want, but that won't keep people from creating more. If you take the time to teach your kids what is valuable to them, they'll ignore the other stuff on their own. Mine do now. I think...

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