Keeping hip and in touch

Did you find the comments section of many social posts flooded with the phrase ‘nah, he tweakin’ last week. It was everywhere, taking up space on all manner of issues. It all started with a comment by singer Lil Nas (no I don’t know who he is) about Tony Hawk (pro skateboarder I am told) releasing a series of skateboards marked with his own blood. It set the internet alight and forced news outlets to write a plethora of articles about it. And all I could think was, man, am I out of touch? Roundly followed up by the thought that I happen to agree with Lil Nas calling out this particular bit of marketing and shouldn’t someone get him in a leadership position where he can mobilise people to bring about change around bigger issues?

All this to say, it’s much easier to stay in the know these days. You can’t help but see it as soon as you pick up your phone. At a minimum, the internet allows you to keep up to date on news. And with social media you can keep tabs on/ keep up to date with people. The power of both things allows you take deep dives into infinite sub-cultures, trending topics and questionable rabbit holes. In just a few clicks you can stay on top of what’s fashionable, cutting edge, controversial….and what your children are into! But does this mean you’re cool? In short: no. Despite the intel at our fingertips, it’s still easy to miss or not grasp the zeitgeist. So, how do you know if you’re out of touch?

Well, it’s not like your house dress or shorts with long socks combo gives you away! Those days - of everyone having certain roles according to their age group and dressing accordingly - are over. Good riddance too. Now we can be middle aged mums in activewear dropping the children at school before working on our online business from a café, surrounded by hipsters (who dat? Not me. But I see others doing it. And do you like my casual appropriation of urban vernacular?).

Yet still. Sigh. Despite our access to and subsequent increased knowledge of pop culture smoothing out the boundaries between generations, our ability to dress in a way that makes us appear on-trend, our understanding of a street-wise lexicon, familiarity with topics affecting youth that we didn’t even have names for 20 years ago, and our skills using Instagram Reels (confession: I can’t even get to grips with Stories – my ability begins and ends with posting a simple pic and caption to the “THE GRID”), we will never be completely in touch with what our children are experiencing.

Because we are not them. And nor should we be. Because: WE ARE PARENTS! And that’s what our children need us to be most.

So don’t strain yourself trying to keep up with an ever-moving zeitgeist. As soon as you put your finger on the pulse, things will surely move, thanks in large part to the rapid spread of information via social media. My advice is to assume we are out of touch, simply because we can’t possibly understand the nuances of life affecting our children at this rate. But they don’t need us to be in the know (or pretend to be) in order to be available to them.

I detest how the online world infects our real life these days but using it to keep up to date with “what the kids are into” is helpful. But the most important thing is just to make time to listen to our children IRL (in real life). That’s how we stay in the real know.