The Knot-A-Verse : (K/not)(_/-)(A/_/-/‘/Verse)

Hello again ‘Verse! Been a lil’ while and I’m as yet uncertain when life will allow prioritizing this website. A little check in though, a (true in this case) story, and maybe a few pieces of art if I get to it. It was Eldest and Youngest’s first day of school today. It went both well and poorly, for reasons I shan’t get into overmuch. However, I’m struck by how different yet the same the world is for them

It’s the same for classrooms bedecked in construction paper apples and frogs. And for the vague sawdust smell from the shavings of fresh No.2 pencils. And children hanging off their parent’s coattails in a sometimes very literal fashion. Except that it’s still too hot for coats. And Youngest totally wouldn’t do anything like that ever.

It’s different in that when I went to pick Eldest up half an hour after his bus was supposed to arrive, he and the other two kids still waiting there were all ignoring each other in favor of their cellphones. Apparently none of them spoke the entire time and this was normal.

Eldest is introverted, but I have to believe that in a world where his specific friends and games and interests weren’t so immediately available, he would be bored enough to talk to other people in his immediate vicinity. Either that or he’d be making something out of blades of grass or pacing around and more intentionally ignoring the other kids while they talked, or something.

Humans didn’t evolve to interact with a screen all day, ignoring the people and nature around them. Research shows even the introverted derive happiness from small, ordinary bouts of real life human interaction. And yet all three of them–nothing! For half an hour! I feel slightly less guilty that those other two kids with other parents were also glued to their devices when left to their own devices. At least they didn’t steal each other’s. I suspect COVID played a part in their vices and theft does not appear to be one.

I suspect my other two kids would also stick to their right to remain silent given the chance unless they were with each other. Then they would be glued to screens except when engaging in loud, animated…debates… punctuated with an oddly high number of sentences with phrasing “You might expect A but B”–I really don’t know how you distinguish AI from young children learning from bots. Other than the smells, the piercing shrieks, or other indications that they are not themselves robots. We do have a family password now for situations in which our voices might be cloned to scam us into paying bail money.

It’s possible one might be lured into a life of IRL crime if someone not of their generation decided to steal one of their devices, so I periodically check if they remember the password. Though that makes me realize I’ve not checked in a while to see if they still remember my phone number since they got devices that remember it for them. They’d need that to call me from jail. And I guess I don’t really know if their generation is theft averse since no child at the bus stop had run out of battery life to test their penchant for assault for battery. I doubt it, honestly.

Though it’s another screen, I enjoy watching Miyazaki movies with Youngest and am surprised at how much he understands of the convoluted plots and how willing he is to sit through the slowly-moving portions. Yesterday we watched Howl’s Moving Castle. I was reminded that the book begins by explaining that in their magical world, “it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes.”

The protagonist of that book is, of course, the eldest of three. Eldest wanted to read the book when he was younger because of that beginning and we both suffered through the whole thing (me because I made Sophie’s old voice very scratchy and my throat would be sore after most chapters, and him because he was still too young to appreciate the convoluted plot with a bit of romance). The movie’s pretty different, but it’s Miyazaki and I like it anyway.

I hope I didn’t fail Eldest by not making him real life enough after Covid forced allowing screentime interactions for any interactions IRL besides with his brothers. They are ridiculously good siblings though. And Youngest and Middle (Mid-est or Middlingest sound like insults?) would support him should he fail. Not without demanding the family password and a new version of Linux first, though. So if you’ve read this far and haven’t read the story yet, you’d probably like it. It’s mostly about Eldest and how he didn’t die as a toddler. It’s called “My Toddler Fell Off An 8 ft Playscape and It Made Me So Happy”