It doesn’t pay to underestimate the kids

The children are our future (and we should be very afraid!)
The children are our future (and we should be very afraid!)

From Luke Wroblewski on Twitter:

My 17 month old son can start the iPad, unlock it, find (by navigating 3 screens) and run his favorite app: Dr. Seuss ABC.

When our wonderful son was about that age, he could turn on TVs at stranger’s houses; he’d figured out that it was the rightmost button (a pattern I’d never noticed).

The adaptability of young folks to what us oldies see as new and often confusing (or downright terrifying) circumstances may be the only thing that allows us to pull out of the many tailspins we’ve initiated. So when some politician babbles on about how “the children are our future”, see if their track record backs that up, and hold their feet to the fire if it doesn’t.

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2 thoughts on “It doesn’t pay to underestimate the kids”

  1. Remember that we were once someone’s “our children” and were their future. It’s certainly true in a literal sense, but I suspect the best we can hope for is improving gradually over generations.

  2. Sure – I’m not expecting today’s 10 year olds to magically fix everything. But it really annoys me when there’s so much potential there and people blather on about “the children are our future” but cut school budgets right and left in favor of crazy, ill-conceived wars and tax rebates whose value is roughly that of a toaster oven. All bass-ackwards IMHO.

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