Who is the most tech savvy doper with the most Luddite parent?
My Mom not only couldn’t program the VCR, she could never even grasp the process of putting in a tape and playing it, even when I left written instructions. She would not use a cordless phone, and the only way I managed to get a microwave into her home was that she was dying and too weak to stop me.
I gave up on my father’s skillset when I realized he couldn’t teach me to fix a bike tire, and he may have been the only man in America mechanically incapable of changing the oil in his car.
I possess just slightly over the average computer skill of the typical office drone. I can set up my own home network, build databases, and code in html. One day, I am going to get in trouble for playing with queries instead of doing my real work.
There are obviously some very techie dopers out there. I know some of you must have fathers rebuilding computers so your mothers will have enough server space to host their own blogs, but I’m more interested in the greatest disparities.
(But do tell me if your parent is the techie, and you are the one still carrying a a dumbphone.)
(Not intended to disparage the intelligence of the non-technical/old. Despite the morphine/painkiller cocktail my mother was on in her last days, she correctly answered the final Jeopardy question the day before she died.)
My dad was born before WW2, my mom during. They had me when they were 45 and 40, people commonly mistook them for my grandparents. They are dead now but man were they tech illiterate.
Lets just say my mom wouldn’t even have a clue how to use a PC mouse, my dad used a PC in the course of his career but he basically was helpless unless he had been trained on a specific task. I once asked him to take a screenshot and C+P it into paint and email it to me as an attachment. I might as well have asked him to build a spaceship, even though he knew how to email but only through the program he had been trained on.
My father never touched anything computer-related, never even changed the oil in his car, or a tire. He was a wonderful artist, but only with traditional media.
My mother was also a wonderful artist, but never even used a compass to draw circles. I taught her to use a TV remote, but she jabbed it with her fingers, and thought it had to be constantly pointed at the TV, or it would go out. No microwave. Never drove on a freeway (never went over 25). Never used a CD player or VCR.
She took a “Computers 101 for Seniors” class once. Learned how to open and close a file, and send an email. She came home and said “Computers are HARD.”
Both of my parents had above-average intelligence, but were born too early.
Mom: My TV doesn’t work again. Should I call someone out to fix it?
Me (knowing full well what happened): Not yet, let’s try something first. Walk over and pick up the remote. Got it? Good. Now press the small red button at the top (TV power). Great. Now press zero, then 3, then “Enter”,
Mom: But That’s not the channel aI want to watch.
Me: I know, mom, we’ll get there. These high tech electronics work in weird ways.
Mom: OK
Me: Wonderful. Now press the big red button (Sat. Power). Give it a second to coneect.
Mom: Hey! It works now! Thank you, my brilliant son
Me: You’re welcome mom. Talk to ya soon!
Mom: Wait! Now how do I watch a CD again?
Even after explaining multiple times, she just can’t get that 1)she must turn on the TV first, then the sattelite box; and 2) as a rule one listens to CD’s and watches DVD’s.
My mother was also born in 1913, my father in 1906. He owned a service station (lost it during the second wave of the depression) and could take a car apart of reassemble it with a few tools while wearing a tux, but died long before micro- or even mini-computers came around. I suppose I could learn to change the oil on a car, but never have. I can and have changed a tire, most recently about five years ago. On the other hand, I bought my first computer in 1982 and my first laptop in 1989. I took that laptop to my mother’s (I stayed with her during a sabbatical in 80-90) and used a modem board to connect to my office and get and send email. I learned a couple of computing languages, most notably and successfully Forth and Tex (and used the former to make a light interpreter for the latter), but I still don’t really understand Windows, Linux and the like. My son is a Microsoft programmer working in C++, which I know nothing about. He has programmed hardware interfaces. For that, he starts by rewriting the manufacturer’s spec sheets which are never correct. Way beyond me.
Well, I know that in most cases the parent will be less proficient in current technology that their offspring. I guess I was looking for stories like “My parents won’t even give up their rotary phone, but I graduated from MIT and I work in R&D for Tesla.”