Dear LPG, 

It is interesting how quickly we homo sapiens adapt to this changing world of ours.  The changes sneak up on us, and before we even notice, we just fit in.  We have to take a serious look back to see just how much we have changed.  It is called evolution, and it is going on all around us every second of every minute. 

For the most part, we humans, regardless of age, are so busy attending to the many essential tasks that we each need to accomplish during our days, that we can miss the big picture altogether.  For me, it is as if international and national news are passing by on the distant horizon, while the appointment, meeting, or task I plan to tackle today is taking up all my time, effort, and attention.   

One of the things that has changed significantly over the years, even though you have to take a step back to notice it, is the level of patience we have these days.  I get pretty annoyed when I lose things, even though I live alone and can only blame myself for putting them in the wrong place. I know that it happens to my friends of a certain age as well.  I read on the internet that children and pensioners have less patience than people between those ages, but there is more to it than that.  Things were so different when I was a child. 

 It has been a few years, but when I look at the children of today, I see that things have changed significantly.  The ones that come to mind are my grandchildren, and I don’t think they are unique when I say that their innocent acceptance of the big, imperfect world ended so much earlier in their lives than I remember mine, or any of my friends' doing.  

In the 1950s, we were reprimanded for nearly everything that was vaguely wrong, and by the time we reached school age, certain behaviours were second nature to us.  I learned, and did my best to teach my children to wait to be offered things and being quiet was the order of the 20th century child’s day, as I remember it. 

My children now live far away in the depths of Kent, which means I don’t see them as often I would like to.  Their work and their own respective family lives result in my talking to my grandchildren more by phone and electronically than face-to-face.

I invited my children and theirs over for a family gathering last bank holiday.  They arrived and let themselves in before my 9-year-old grandson found me in the kitchen.  He and his charming smile walked straight up to me and said, ‘Hello Grandma, can I have…’.  What he wanted was not the point. I wonder how many other grandmothers, like me, would have to ask where the sincerity was hidden in that greeting.  No hug, no ‘how are you?’

Please don’t let me leave you thinking that he is a bad child; he is typical of so many kids in his age group.  I am sure all of us old people know that it is not our place to criticise. However, it seems to me that even the youngsters have no time or patience for any of the pleasantries that my generation acquired as part of our social education, but which so many members of the younger generations view as unnecessary.  More important to them is whether they can play a game on your smartphone (assuming they don’t have one of their own yet) or have a glass of pop and all this before they have had time to say hello correctly. 

I love their excitement and enthusiasm when they visit. Still, patience, a fundamental value, seems to be getting completely squashed at a time when such values should be becoming a part of a young person’s force of habit.  

It is a sad reality that all the time-saving and labour-saving inventions, which are supposed to make life less complicated and give us more time, have resulted in giving us more time to fit more things into.

VP, Ladywell.

VP offers a few bits of internet wisdom on the subject…

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 and perhaps a story to tell your grandchildren to illustrate her point… 

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