Instant message is supposed to be instant. But sometimes, my daughter takes hours or even days to respond to mine. She takes exception to me communicating with her on Snapchat as to her, it just seemed weird that my DMs (direct messages) pop up along with others from her friends. She doesn’t use FB as Facebook is for old people. And I while there are other platforms, the Android and Apple gap is sometimes just too troublesome to navigate so we use the telco’s SMS. It’s direct and secured and doesn’t rely on WiFi.
But just because we have a common communication platform doesn’t mean our dialog is clear. It’s like when I went on internet dating, I had to learn whole new lingo like NPNC, DDF, RL, and K. With my daughter, I had to decipher acronyms like TBH (to be honest), IDK (I don’t know), NGL (not gonna lie) and IYKYK (if you know, you know). Although our use of acronyms is quite benign, there are more alarming ones that parents need to be aware like KYS (kill yourself), MOS (mom over shoulder), 420, CD9 (drug related) and GNOC (get naked on camera).
And then there are truly generational enigmas. I texted her something and got back the response, ‘Y’. I thought she agreed, but in fact, her meaning was ‘why’ expressed in the form of the alphabet. That led to a whole unnecessary discussion.
Silence is still golden and there’s nothing to translate in these moments.
Maybe I’m old school, but I still use my handheld as phone and I prefer to call people up. Kids avoid this direct approach and I think they have lost the art of a conversation. They are particularly averse to talking to strangers on voice only calls.
My daughter is long past the age where I monitor her online activity and check her SMS contacts. We’ve always been open and our communications have always been respectful and never came from a position of suspicion. But that took years to build and I’m glad I have that channel open. However, we also don’t abuse it either. I use SMS with my daughter purely for logistic and checking in with each other. I don’t send her TikTok clips or content that incite doomscrolling that can lead to distressing anxieties.
But at the end of the day, we come home, have dinner and keep our phones off the table. Even when we watch movies, we do not have our phones with us. We’re in the moment and I want her to believe that we don’t need to be tethered to the outside world every waking minute.
Silence is still golden and there’s nothing to translate in these moments.
