Geek Family
Apparently my daughter is now old enough that when I’m away on business we send each other emails1.
In order to illustrate for some people at my office why it was that I no longer was interested in my business travel being any more than the bare functional minimum, I showed them today’s missive:
When you come back will you please pick me up at nap time because you miss me so much? When you come back from your work will you please come to a park with your little Sary, have some fun stuff to do with her? Would you like to come home sooner? Please will you come back really soon? You are my friend. I miss you and I love you. But because you’re my friend the only thing I want you to do is come home sooner.
I’m a big kid now. I really want to go on trail rides. I miss you.
Love Sarah
Some of them missed the point and instead got hung up on the fact that I was getting email from a 3-year old. To them I said “The impressive part isn’t that she’s emailing me, it’s that she’s sending me email messages from her own email account (on my personal domain), using Evolution on a Linux box!”
She’s part of a geek family for sure.
(Actually, it’s deeply weird to see her sit down, open up the Ubuntu laptop, browse the program menu to the various educational software I’ve put on there, pick out one, and then start using it, all with no parental input. Email is obviously a parent-assisted activity still, but seeing the kinds of things she’s picked up and can do on her own is more than a bit freaky.)
- I have a suspicion that her mother may play a secretarial role here, since Sarah probably wouldn’t punctuate.(back)
George
Kira
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:22 am
It is very strange seeing your child become effortlessly IT-literate. I have the same feeling whenever my 4-year-old son goes to the PC, stops the tune I have playing (usually because it is too hectic for him) and then clicks to his playlist and selects what he wants to listen to. I fear world-domination is on his agenda.
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:49 pm
I’m not worried about Sarah taking over the world, but she did teach her mom how to use my iPod the other day. I wonder how her world view will be different than mine, when she grows up immersed in the essentially instant access to endless data & entertainment of her choosing.