What is the matter with kids these days?
Okay, now I am starting to really sound like the grumpy old man that lives down the street, who, if he is not yelling at the kids to get off his lawn, is complaining about how easy kids have it these days. “Why, in my day, we didn’t have all these new-fangled electronical tv boxes. If we wanted some entertainment in a box, we would go outside and catch a badger and a raccoon, throw them in a crate and see which one came out alive.”
Okay, now I am starting to really sound like the grumpy old man that lives down the street, who, if he is not yelling at the kids to get off his lawn, is complaining about how easy kids have it these days. “Why, in my day, we didn’t have all these new-fangled electronical tv boxes. If we wanted some entertainment in a box, we would go outside and catch a badger and a raccoon, throw them in a crate and see which one came out alive.”
Well, in my day, we didn’t have all of these fancy, hi-tech gadgets that kids have today. If you wanted to play with pretend guns, picking up a Wii or XBox controller wasn’t an option. Video games were just starting to make an appearance. The animation was slightly more sophisticated than a pixelated puppet on strings. A totally awesome puppet on strings that looked like PacMan and Frogger, that is, but I digress...
No, you scoured the back yard for just the right tree branch and broke it off piece by piece until it was just right. If you wanted your pretend gun battle to be at all realistic, any sound effects for your gun or sword or trebuchet (Didn’t every kid build their own trebuchet at one point or another?) came straight out our mouths. From the rat-a-tat of a machine gun to the booming sound of an explosion, realistic toy weapon sound effects were an artform to most kids that I played with.
The early indicators of my failings as a parent began about 7 years ago when Tyler’s creative play really began to become more animated. I remember one such instance in particular - the time that he had finally discovered the cardboard roll found inside a roll of wrapping paper.
Tyler did what God intend for little boys to do with those cardboard rolls - he started playing swords with it. It started with some light side-to-side swooshing motions as he was getting a good feel for his new weapon. The speed of the hacking movements increased until he was inflicting real damage on my back and arm. Okay, maybe not real damage, but it would smart a little if he got me just right.
There was only one problem - the poor kid didn’t know how to make a sword sound effect. Instead, with each swoosh of the sword, he shouted out “Sword! Sword! Sword!”. This continued as he played with pretend guns - “Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!”. You want to chop something with your Samarai Sword, you say? “Chop! Chop! Chop!”.
I was aghast. How could I have allowed my first-born son to reach his fourth year of life and not teach him to make a totally RAD sword, gun or explosion sound effect? Maybe there is something wrong with him. “Honey, should we take him to the doctor and have him checked out?” Every normal little boy knows how to make a real gun sound, don’t they?
There was only one problem - the poor kid didn’t know how to make a sword sound effect. Instead, with each swoosh of the sword, he shouted out “Sword! Sword! Sword!”. This continued as he played with pretend guns - “Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!”. You want to chop something with your Samarai Sword, you say? “Chop! Chop! Chop!”.
I was aghast. How could I have allowed my first-born son to reach his fourth year of life and not teach him to make a totally RAD sword, gun or explosion sound effect? Maybe there is something wrong with him. “Honey, should we take him to the doctor and have him checked out?” Every normal little boy knows how to make a real gun sound, don’t they?
Now, he is 10 years old and things have gotten slightly better. He can make a decent explosion sound, thanks to some intense tutoring from his buddy, Jason. His airplane engine and his walkie-talkie static sounds aren’t too bad, and he is working feverishly on perfecting his machine gun rapid-fire.
However, our story has taken an interesting turn over the past several weeks. He hasn’t had much occasion to display his sword sound effects lately, but now he is communicating his grammar, punctuation and many emotions as if he were reading about it in a book. “This is so awesome, Exclamation Point!”. “You want me to do what, Question mark?” “Read my sisters a story tonight, Question Mark? Grooooannn.”
Trying to rationalize this as something other than more signs of my failings as a parent, instead I am looking at it this way - this is just a sign of how advanced and literate he is. He is a reading machine, after all. I would put the number of pages he turns in a year against any adult that I know. As a result, life has become a book in his mind. He’s simply a brilliant author in the making, likely already working on his opus magnum. Move over Steinbeck, comma, Goss is the next great American author and he’s coming after you, Exclamation Point! Period.
However, our story has taken an interesting turn over the past several weeks. He hasn’t had much occasion to display his sword sound effects lately, but now he is communicating his grammar, punctuation and many emotions as if he were reading about it in a book. “This is so awesome, Exclamation Point!”. “You want me to do what, Question mark?” “Read my sisters a story tonight, Question Mark? Grooooannn.”
Trying to rationalize this as something other than more signs of my failings as a parent, instead I am looking at it this way - this is just a sign of how advanced and literate he is. He is a reading machine, after all. I would put the number of pages he turns in a year against any adult that I know. As a result, life has become a book in his mind. He’s simply a brilliant author in the making, likely already working on his opus magnum. Move over Steinbeck, comma, Goss is the next great American author and he’s coming after you, Exclamation Point! Period.
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