Hello?

If I understand this whole parenting thing correctly, part of our job as the big people in the group is to prepare the little people to one day possess the skills they need to live successfully on their own. Circumstances, of course, vary, but on the whole, this is our goal.

Now, I'm aware that technology has changed life drastically since I was one of those little people, as it has in generations past. For instance, I was never taught how to pluck feathers from a dead chicken and buy my boneless, skinless chicken breasts in a neatly wrapped package at a grocery store. Nor was I ever shown how to weave a rug. Instead, I've got my eye on a pretty brown and blue one in the Pottery Barn catalog. But both were, at one time in history, considered important in terms of quality of life.

While I've already seen its use and abilities change drastically in the years I've been on this planet, I think the telephone, in one form or another, will stick around for the foreseeable future. If so, I need to step up my parenting effort as I was reminded, while listening to a choppy phone conversation, that my eldest son sadly lacks these vital communication skills.

This is not news. I've listened to his end of the conversation before when his dad or grandparents call and try to speak to him via the phone. Mostly what I hear is a whole lot of silence with the occasional "Yes" or "No." I've even been the poor soul on the other end of the line who has to pull conversation out of him like a stubborn weed.   But, I guess I thought it would be different if he was talking to a friend.

We were driving to the cross-town middle school football game (yes.  We are a football game going family, I guess) when my cell phone rang.  The caller ID alerted me to who was calling and I answered assuming I'd be speaking with Seth's friend's mother, who has been trying unsuccessfully to get our sons together for months (they are both new students at the same elementary school and have managed to become friends without our helpful interference, so my flakiness has not hurt Seth).  Instead, I heard a boy awkwardly trying to ask if he could speak to Seth.  I smiled at his nervous formality as I passed the phone to the back seat of the minivan and listened to...well....almost nothing.

My eyes looked in the rear view mirror to see what Seth was doing to prevent him from using his voice but I saw nothing.  Then I heard, "Yes"  followed by another yes and then an "I don't think so."

Not long after he said that, he passed the phone back to me and I listened for the boy's mother's voice to see if we could act as interpreters for our phone-challenged children but the line was dead.

"What did Luke want, Seth?" I asked.

"He wanted to know where we were sitting at the football game so he could find me."

"I didn't hear you answer that question.  What did he ask you?"

Seth responded, "He asked if we were still going to the football game and when I told him yes, he said he would be there too and he'd come find me but I told him that I didn't know where we would be sitting."

"Um..I never heard you say that," I challenged.

"Well...."

Who knows what was said but he didn't say hello, he didn't say good-bye, and he arrived at the football game without any plans to meet his friend.  Luckily, as soon as we arrived, the boys found each other and spent the rest of the evening talking and laughing and ignoring the football game altogether.

Which proves that they do know how to talk to each other.  Just not if they are holding a little box next to their ears.

Our home phone rarely rings these days with most people who need to get a hold of either Jay or me calling our cell phones.  I've never even thought about teaching my boys phone etiquette before because if I'm home, I answer it, and if I'm not, I specifically tell them not to.  Maybe it's a lost art anyways, what with all the texting and chatting that seems the preferred mode of communication these days.  But, they still need to know how to talk on the phone, right?