On What’s Important

  A co-worker had brought her young son into the office near the end of the workday and put him to work at some adolescent on-line games until it was time to go home. Nothing new here, and we were all glad to see him. About 20 minutes later this small child was pitching a king-sized fit. “I’m not going home… I’m staying here… No-o-o-ooo-ooooo!” What caused this outburst from this normally pleasant child? His mom had told him it was time to go and he didn’t want to leave his high-speed Internet connection in the office for the pokey dial-up connection at home. “I don’t want to go… Why can’t Dad fix it??? I….don’t….WANT….TO!!!!” Finally, his mom picked up her stuff and headed for the door, at-which-point-in-time I began to think I was going to get to baby sit a small child that I didn’t own. Fairly quickly the possibility of actually being left behind overcame his his bandwidth addiction and he stomped out with all the theatrics appropriate for a five year old having his limbs twisted, broken and finally ripped from his body.
  Before one rises to criticize the child or his mom, I have to point out that I am more than 10 times his age and would probably be at least three times as ugly given the same circumstances. And while I don’t usually condone bad behavior, any child who is both comfortable with and proficient at getting around the Internet is going to have a substantial head start on his peers that he will probably maintain for the rest of his life. The world is getting more and more technical and those who can embrace it, ultimately turn it to their needs and wants, are going to be the achievers, the leaders of the future.
Besides which, I can think of many other addictions much less pleasant or useful. Four young ladies grew up in my house and they all were addicted to charge cards and reliving the daily lives of each and every Soap Opera star on TV. Although they haven’t changed much, I still love ’em. 7/20/06