“What a boring life…

…you must have had mom,” said my almost 9 year old son yesterday. He was asking me if I had played some computer game he loves when I was a kid. I laughed out loud and said: “No, we didn’t have those games when I was a kid.” OH… speechless for a second. “So what games did you play?” I had to think – hmmm… Pong? Space Invaders? On our Commodore 64 by which time I was at least 12.

He still didn’t really get it. “So what websites did you go to?” “Hmmm… the web didn’t exist yet,“ I said. (Well technically it did but not for civilian use…) OH. So, he was quiet for a second, trying to process, what for him is a regular part of life – and finally he said, “Wow – what a boring life you must have had…”

Ah. Thanks…

Course I said what any responsible parent would say, “We played so many fun games outside, cards, Lego, etc. It wasn’t boring at all.”

Then I got the look. Yeah right.

I’ve been getting that look more and more often lately. He’s moving into the “come on mom, don’t do that, don’t say that” zone. He’s just touching the edge of his mom, me thus, not being cool anymore – just. But now that he knows the truth about my lack of “real entertainment” when I was a kid – I think I’ve now fully graduated into the “un-cool” mother zone.

Luckily I still have three daughters who think I’m amazing!

P.S. Just so you know… He gets 30 min of screen time a day, we don’t have a Wii, and other than on weekends and the odd exception we don’t watch much TV. Guess he gets his “life is fun, not boring” quota from those 30 min. No wonder it’s the first thing he wants to do when he gets home from school!