I had to help my 16-year-old with tech support recently.
That’s not a thing I have to do too much of anymore; my teenage and young adult kids are more likely to roll their eyes at me while they show me a shortcut to do something on my phone or ask why I actually call the customer service number.
They think you can learn anything you need to do by watching a YouTube video.
They have a point, I admit. I have done more than one — more than a dozen, probably — do-it-yourself home and appliance repairs thanks to the magic of YouTube. Even if it does take a little bit to scroll through all the leaky drain videos to find one with the same configuration of what I’m trying to fix.
But you can’t, for example, return a pair of boots that was on sale, no returns, because you accidentally clicked the wrong size by watching a video. No, that takes a phone call and throwing yourself on the mercy of the customer service rep.
It’s a call I’m pretty sure none of my kids would be comfortable making.
As for today’s tech support, she needed to print something. At a different size than the image started. It wasn’t hard to do, and she could have figured it out. She just doesn’t print much of anything these days; most of her schoolwork is either turned in online or completed with pencil or pen on a paper handout.
My husband and I? We use the printer. Maybe, because we’re older, things just don’t seem as real to us if we can’t hold them in our hands.
But as all my kids get older and more independent, it’s good to feel needed. It’s especially nice when what they need is something that is so easy to do.
It’s a big reminder of how the days are long and the years are short — something that I think goes for everyone, not just parents raising children. But children grow so fast that each year is dramatically different from the one before.
It doesn’t feel like long ago at all that I was thrilled by my youngest’s newfound ability to get in the car and buckle her own seatbelt; this summer, she got her driver’s license. In my eyes, she is very much the same kid I dropped off for her first day of prekindergarten; in two years, she’ll go to college.
Her siblings are about a decade older, and because of that, she’s had different, older parents than they had. More tired, definitely, but also, maybe, more patient. At least when she hits a new phase of life, like starting to drive or looking towards the end of high school, it’s not a first for us as well.
Whatever happens, I’ll be standing by to print whatever documents are necessary.