My twin daughters will turn ten in 2 weeks, and just recently, one of them sincerely asked if I watched Mr. Beast as a kid, and was incredibly surprised when I admitted that this guy is actually a whole generation younger than me. Yes, kids sometimes make us feel like dinosaurs - that is, incredibly ancient.
If you needed proof - here's this viral thread on X (former Twitter), where moms and dads share stories about how a normal conversation with their kid turned out to be another unnecessary reminder that we are all 'fossils.' However, if we put aside the slight sadness, then all these tweets just look really amusing.
More info: X
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)
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And this is why "when I was your age it was uphill both to and home to school!" now seams more likely.. 🙃
Robin Williams as Peter Pan: "Are you related to Mighty Mouse?" Random internet reviewer: "Who is Mighty Mouse?" Me [screaming internally]
If we abstract from the fact that we really are getting older with every single day, then the whole point is that children, whether ours or not, often tell us the truth - or what they consider to be the truth, to our face. Various social boundaries and restrictions haven't yet become entrenched in their minds - so we get funny dialogues and scenes like these when adults do realize their age.
I can top that. I was teaching preschoolers about dinosaurs, and a three year old asked me if I was there when the asteroid killed them all! I'll give her points for thinking I could somehow survive a mass extinction event.
Or the movie going from the expensive to the more affordable category
“Many people say that the subjective perception of time differs between children and adults - and this is true,” says Irina Matveeva, a psychologist and certified NLP specialist, with whom Bored Panda got in touch for a comment here. “And it’s not just about some mental factors, often about ordinary arithmetic.”
“Just judge for yourself - if, let's say, for a 40 Y.O. person one year is 1/40 of their life, then for a 4 Y.O. kid, a year is a whole quarter of their life. Accordingly, everything that happened before - especially if it was long before their birth, is history. Ancient history. Even more ancient, the younger the child. Well, only then do various psychological factors come into play, such as differences between generations..." Irina summarizes.
Well, in the end, you and I are really old, aren’t we? Chris Columbus, while filming Home Alone, tried to specifically “erase” any obvious “time markers” so that his creation would look “out of time,” relevant to any viewer (perhaps the only obvious marker there is the cardboard cutout of Michael Jordan at the McCallisters' house). But he also miscalculated.
For example, my friends’ child, having watched the movie for the very first time, was so surprised: “Why didn’t Kevin just text his parents that he’s okay?” And what can adults tell him, since any explanation will simply be a recognition of one’s own 'antiquity'? Well, somewhere between the dinosaurs and the pyramids of Egypt...
Poor child will never know the joy of checking the coin slot and actually finding money.
In any case, this is nothing more than philosophy, but now just take a break from reflecting and feel free to scroll this list to the very end - because it really deserves it! As they say, any similarities with real people are random - although, damn it, symptomatic. And well, maybe add your own stories in the comments if you have experienced something similar while talking with kids too.
The fact that this is right under the comment of someone asking what a VHS is is hilarious
I was never really a fan of bouncy houses. The other kids would always bump into me, giving me anxiety and all the bouncing gave me a migraine.
🎶Do you have the time, to listen to me whine about nothing and everything all at once🎶
Apparently Pog means cool now. I told my daughter every time she says it I want to throw a slammer at her
I don't know how it works with your own kids, but my little sister loves playing the N64 of my brother's that came out before she was born!
Then they hit teens and they listening to a "new" song and you knows the words because it's a remix 😆 🤣.
This one legitimately confusing me. Like actually. What's VHS and what's "tracking"?
IIRC, tracking was when you had staticky (sp?) lines on the top or bottom of the video. You had an adjustment on the VCR that you could use to "track" the actual tape up or down so the lines disappeared.
That reminded me of being in a store with one of my friends. We saw a copy of blade runner and he said, "that looks like a young Harrison Ford." And then looked to me for approval. I stood there for a second and then very slowly said his name and he went, "It is Harrison Ford isn't it?" "Yup." "I'm sorry... How old is that movie?" He and I are the same age, but he makes me feel ancient daily.
I've only had one model which supported auto tracking. The rest were manual and you adjusted by taking the cover off. Great opportunity to get out the isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs too.
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Makes me think of the time my niece came over for the weekend and asked if I could help her with a class assignment. The assignment? "Interview someone who was alive during 9/11" she goes "so where were you when the first plane hit?" I said "I'm 23 honey. I was probably sitting in a high chair throwing Cheerios at my dad"
I'm pretty sure that Stone Age kids rolled their eyes at their parents for being old fogeys who hadn't even heard about fire or the wheel.
I remember my parents and their friends talking about this kind of stuff, especially the 'what was it like living with dinosaurs?' kind of thing, and that was back in the early '70s
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When my niece was 6 she asked if cars already existed when I was little. I'm 37
On the flipside, it's sometimes weird to realize that some s**t didn't exist for our parents. Backpacks. Like, the things parents obsess over getting for their kids every school year. Those didn't become common until the late 1960s, after the invention of nylon. I asked my mom what she did if she didn't have a backpack, and she was like, "That's what boyfriends were for."
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When I would put my daughters hair in a ponytail I would always get the hairbrush wet to help hold down her flyaways till I was done and put product on it. One day I was giving her a side ponytail in front of the sink like normal and I tell her I used wear my hair like that when I was a kid but I always had a hard time getting my hair to cooperate. She said “why? Cuz they didn’t have sinks back then? Hahahaha you had to bathe in the lake!”
When I was 6 in 1959, I asked my Dad if he fought the Indians when he was in the war. He was really annoyed. In my defense, there were a lot of Westerns on TV.
TBF, Laura Ingalls Wilder was still alive when you were born.
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I remember my mother crying one day when I was four because some boys called her an old lady. I thought, "But she is an old lady." She was 26.
My co-worker (23) likes to tease me about being old. I always respond that I'm their future.
Why are so many of these tweets from almost a decade ago?? Some are actually from a decade or more ago
Buddy of mine got a set of restored episodes of the first star trek TV series. When his kid watched, he said "Dad, these must be really old! They're all using flip phones!" Kid was talking about the communicators, that predated flip phones by about 20 years.
Kids notice. I had some ouchies from my little kids I watch at work. Ughs....
Makes me think of the time my niece came over for the weekend and asked if I could help her with a class assignment. The assignment? "Interview someone who was alive during 9/11" she goes "so where were you when the first plane hit?" I said "I'm 23 honey. I was probably sitting in a high chair throwing Cheerios at my dad"
I'm pretty sure that Stone Age kids rolled their eyes at their parents for being old fogeys who hadn't even heard about fire or the wheel.
I remember my parents and their friends talking about this kind of stuff, especially the 'what was it like living with dinosaurs?' kind of thing, and that was back in the early '70s
Load More Replies... When my niece was 6 she asked if cars already existed when I was little. I'm 37
On the flipside, it's sometimes weird to realize that some s**t didn't exist for our parents. Backpacks. Like, the things parents obsess over getting for their kids every school year. Those didn't become common until the late 1960s, after the invention of nylon. I asked my mom what she did if she didn't have a backpack, and she was like, "That's what boyfriends were for."
Load More Replies... When I would put my daughters hair in a ponytail I would always get the hairbrush wet to help hold down her flyaways till I was done and put product on it. One day I was giving her a side ponytail in front of the sink like normal and I tell her I used wear my hair like that when I was a kid but I always had a hard time getting my hair to cooperate. She said “why? Cuz they didn’t have sinks back then? Hahahaha you had to bathe in the lake!”
When I was 6 in 1959, I asked my Dad if he fought the Indians when he was in the war. He was really annoyed. In my defense, there were a lot of Westerns on TV.
TBF, Laura Ingalls Wilder was still alive when you were born.
Load More Replies... I remember my mother crying one day when I was four because some boys called her an old lady. I thought, "But she is an old lady." She was 26.
My co-worker (23) likes to tease me about being old. I always respond that I'm their future.
Why are so many of these tweets from almost a decade ago?? Some are actually from a decade or more ago
Buddy of mine got a set of restored episodes of the first star trek TV series. When his kid watched, he said "Dad, these must be really old! They're all using flip phones!" Kid was talking about the communicators, that predated flip phones by about 20 years.
Kids notice. I had some ouchies from my little kids I watch at work. Ughs....
