This is a diary about what happens when you give your elderly parents new technology. Especially if it is something you secretly, really want for yourself.
When I ordered Mark Twain’s Autobiography in December, I was shocked at how large and heavy it was. The print is also tiny. I can barely hold the book to read it. I decided, since this is volume one of three, that I needed a Kindle before volume two comes out. I put out an urgent message on my FB. “I really, really, really need a Kindle for my birthday” (in Jan). I didn’t get one.
My mom’s birthday is Thursday, my daughter’s BD too, so I talked my sister into both of us getting a Kindle for my mom for her birthday. My mom has very bad hands which go numb all the time and loves to read. I figured the weight, the style and the fact that you could change the size of the type meant it would be a perfect present for her. (As well as get books almost instantly)
The Kindle came UPS last Friday, and my sister, her daughter and I all looked at it greedily. Chrissie, my sister’s daughter, clutched it to her breast and said, “I want a Kindle.” (we all love to read in my family). My sister told her maybe for her birthday, which is in May.
We wrapped it and took it to my mom Saturday, early because she is trying to ignore her birthday. My sister, her husband and I watched as she opened it, a big smile and look of surprise on her face. She is the first one in our family to get a Kindle. She said, “I know you all just want to inherit it.” We all laughed, and I told her we all had “Kindle envy.”
Now comes the hard part. I won’t tell you what we have gone through over the years, getting my parents to even buy a computer, upgrade a couple years ago to a nice MAC, make the transfer to wireless. Every new introduction is like watching a meltdown with trepidation and resistance (future shock in action), even though they do email and my mom is now on FB. I have noticed the older the person, the harder it is to make new adjustments to technology.
The first step was to sign onto my parents wireless network. Of course, I could not find the password anywhere in the dozens of pages of passwords that my dad keeps. I tried every password they used. None worked. My dad was getting agitated and upset and wanted to know what was going on. I told him I had to sign on to the network. “No”, he yelled, “I don’t want wireless. I won’t have it.” My dad is eighty. I didn’t tell him he had had wireless for over a year now. It’s best to ignore my dad when he is like this. My mom kept saying, "leave, leave, let’s do this some other time, your dad is upset." But I was determined to complete my mission and was not leaving until my mom had at least one book on her Kindle. I finally had to call tech support and get my dad to turn over his computer to me (which he hates to do, he wants to be in control). Within three minutes I had the password. Step one had taken over an hour. On to the next step.
My dad went to Amazon on line while I registered the Kindle with Amazon for the device. We started looking at books mom wanted, but he would not let me have the mouse. He kept flipping past the books I wanted to look at. Finally I muttered, “fine”, under my breath, “I don’t need you to shop.” Within two minutes I had bought the book and had it downloaded straight from the Kindle. Once you are on a network you don’t need a computer for the Kindle. Now we could all leave and let them de-stress.
My sister called my mom this morning and my mom told her we were all going to get early Christmas presents. She ordered us all Kindles and they will be here any day. No more Kindle envy. I love you mom. You are the best mom ever.