I’m the lone female in the house, excluding our 18 month old Corgi Coco.

Coco is a definite kindred spirit and a lovely welcoming voice when I arrive home, and she has a perceptiveness that frankly scares me.

That aside, I am a lone in a house of two tweens, husband, rabbit and two gold fish (gender unknown!)

Tween Two is coming online. He is about to turn 10 and is showing the spirit and soul of someone firmly enamoured about social justice. The Prime Minister has become a pen friend, well friend is not the word, more a debriefer of the injustices coming through the Australian Government at this time.

This coming of age, of double digits feels strange, a growing up – yet so young.

I wondered where I was at 10? Tramping the plains of western NSW on a farm bigger than most cities, fat blue skies and the solace and knowing of being alone. Naive, yes! No exposure to the technologies of the day (were there any in the 1970’s?) although my parents did have a telex machine…

It’s the ability to grab and use any technology, to accept that it will be honest and good; to signup without thought of where all these details are stored, regurgitated and used for more advertising; targeting directly into inboxes.

Its not frightening, its simply overwhelming at times. As a parent of the 2015’s having grown a teenage life so far from this, it can be hard to keep up, to stay not ahead but simply on-par with what our 10 year olds are getting into.

We have open conversations about what tools are being used, about email addresses used to sign up; names and passwords.

As that lone female having the voice and keeping the voice across the growing up of boys is challenging and unique.

When the everydayness of the technology, I revert to the most natural of tactics. My most powerful cut through comes in the morning, the early hours when Tweens (still!) wander sleepily into the parental bed for a cuddle before their full awakens draws them back into a world that I don’t belong.

This is the true time of togetherness that no technology, age or lived in world of today will remove or encroach. Long may it last.

Warmly

Jessica

1 June 2015

Comments are always welcome. Please be mindful 
however that words can enlighten or dishearten.