OMG: We srvivd b4 txtng, FYI!

Has texting gone a bit haywire? Teens don’t talk on the phone, they don’t even email, they just send cryptic abbreviations that have english teachers worrying about the future of accurate spelling. I feel like the old curmudgeon, complaining that kids today don’t know how to parse a sentence or churn their own butter, and reminiscing about the good old days of fountain pens that leaked and cars without power steering.

I’m all for keeping up with technology – I love email for transacting business or keeping up with friends whose schedules don’t jive with mine, and an iPod is much more convenient than those old bulky walk-mans (not to mention 8-track tapes). However, this texting craze seems to have gotten out of hand – it’s one thing to send a quick text to someone in a meeting, so you don’t interrupt anything (Pls PU kds @ 3, thnx), but I had to institute a no-texting rule in my carpools, because apparently teenagers can’t wait 15 minutes to reply to an urgent message about who said what to whom about you know what, RUOK?, and the incessant clicking sound from 3 competing phones was driving me crazy.

I’m actually lucky – I have boys, who aren’t nearly as committed to texting as most girls. And my younger son is the only 11-year-old on the planet who doesn’t have a cell phone (am I also a neanderthal in that area? I think he can wait til he’s 13, since it's the big incentive for him to go through his bar mitzvah, and besides, this way he has something else to complain about, on top of our house having no 2nd t.v., no wii, game cube, etc., and the only mother in the world who makes her kid read occasionally).

I can decipher the lingo, BTW, I jst dnt thnk its gr8 2 tlk w/o vowels or punctuation. So I'll allow some texting, but minimal, and let the kids have even more to complain about. Oh well, I thought my parents were behind the times because their idea of a wild night out was their contract bridge club and I introduced them to recycling. I can’t wait to see what my future grandchildren think of my boys!