10 things our kids will not know about

Some time ago, I got an invitation from Evelyn of The Bottoms Up Blog to participate in Sticker Club. It isn't like Fight Club. It banks on the fact that we're going to spread the information to other people!

So, here was how it would work.
1. We send a packet of stickers to the little kid whose name is in the email.
2. We add on our kids' names ( I did two sets. One for Evan and one for Jordan) to the email (It was an easy cut and paste thing)
3. Send out the email to 6 of their friends.
4. Sit back and wait (Or in the case of the twins, bug us every day) for the mail to come in.

It was a great idea for many reasons.
1. Everyone likes stickers.
2. Everyone likes getting mail. As long as they aren't bills.
And this was the most important one,
3. The kids have no concept of stamps, snail mail and waiting for things to come in the mail. And they also miss out the thrill of waiting for the mailman. Of course, living in an HDB flat, they don't see the mailman. I remember, knowing the mailman's routine and having our dogs herald their arrival. The dogs used to go beserk when they hear the scooter. And our house help would be at the mailbox the next instant, checking to see if she got mail from her family.

Those days are gone.
JED would not even know why the stamp icon is used for our email programme. And it led me to wonder what else they would be totally perplexed over. This was the list I came up with, off the top of my head.
1. They wouldn't know what 'dial a number' means.
2. They wouldn't know why we say 'wind up / down the window' in the car.
3. They wouldn't know what a cassette or a video tape is.
4. They wouldn't have seen our SGD $1 note.
5. They wouldn't know what it would be like to queue at the phone booth on results day, to ring home to tell us their results.
6. The concept of being slave to whatever was on television and not being able to 'rewind/forward/skip' and having to bear with the ads (I see the latter point as a good thing because they don't ask for things they see advertised on tv!)
7. They would not know the idea of having a diary to write in, let alone a diary with a lock and key. I filled so many of those as a kid!
8. They, most definitely would not know what an aerogramme is or why people use it.
9. Postcards from where ever we holiday from. Now, we take a pic on the phone and whatsapp it.
10. They won't know what pen pals are or why pen pals were great fun to have.

It would be great to try and introduce some of these things to them. Cultural capital of sorts. As is, I think trying to introduce them to the concept of What Would McGyver Do? is a lost cause!

 PS: If anyone is keen to join the Sticker Club thing, just leave a message and we'll organise something!

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