I used to be WITH IT but then they changed what IT was...

"I used to be WITH IT, but then they changed what IT was..." (my favorite quote from the Simpsons) describes how I often feel these days when talking to my 20-something-year-old kids. Their reality and my reality are so very different.

My online-poker-playing son recently showed me a poker web site where players look like characters in 3D video games... As I watched my son's 3D character play poker at my son's bidding, the thought crossed my mind: Is it easier to play (winning - but more often losing money) when it it a video game character doing it? But I didn't ask...

Another of my kids recently told me of a sermon he had heard in church (though he called it a speech, not a sermon) where he could finally relate to what was being said. The young minister had apparently used a baseball game, a recent movie and a video game to illustrate a passage of scripture. Would I have understood his main point? I wondered...

When I was younger, I definitely didn't think my parents and grandparents were WITH IT! Did it bother them, as it sometimes bothers me now?

I remember at 15 talking to my grandmother about lipstick and nail polish - GOOD GIRLS didn't wear either, in her opinion. In fact, she confided to me - if anyone wore face powder, back in her youth, the women in the community gossiped about her! I remember laughing - and feeling sorry for any girl who had wanted to hide her acne. Did my laughter bother my grandmother? Did she feel sad that she was no longer WITH IT? Or was she glad things had been different back in her day?

I have a friend who will soon be 91 years old - and she still works one day a week in the same office (for the same boss) she has worked for, for the past 40 or so years. They are both slowing down - and there is a younger girl in the office who works on the computer - but my friend still takes dictation and types letters for her boss to sign... My friend loves to keep active - and her hair style and clothing are as WITH IT as any young office worker's!

What does it take to remain WITH IT? I suspect it involves keeping active and not taking it personally when life as we know it (and, let's face it, as we love it) does change.

I guess that's one thing I appreciate about having kids - they keep me informed of the ways in which I'm no longer WITH IT.

But I really hope I will remain open-minded enough to value life as they know it, even when it bears no resemblance to anything I have ever experienced or known ...