Technologically astute parenting: Part 1

In the summer of 1994, I drove from Colorado to Columbia, South Carolina with my sister Liz. One of my goals on this trip was to re-visit Brick Landing near the intra-coastal waterway town of Shallotte, North Carolina where our grandparents lived when we were children. It had been almost ten years since my previous trip there, and I was eager to revisit the place of many idyllic childhood memories. We only had one day to do it, however; for our real business was to get Liz back to school in Columbia. It just so happened that our one day in Shallotte / Brick Landing coincided with our grandmother Meme’s annual return to spend time with her old friends. That year, Meme was staying in Shallotte with her friend, Pie Face.

Liz and I knocked on the door to Pie Face’s place, but nobody what home. Humph! The indignity of no welcoming committee! In 1994, neither Liz nor I owned a cell phone, so we left a note on the door proclaiming our arrival and our hope to see Meme. We left Pie Face's for a nearby Piggly Wiggly to use a pay phone to make some calls. Fumbling for quarters, we pulled out our list of contacts, starting with Mr. Ballard, an old widower who still lived in Brick Landing. The phone rang and rang. It became obvious that he was not home, and he did not have an answering machine on which we could leave a message. We tried the next name on our list, Miss Naomi. No luck. Her phone ring until we lost count. Didn’t these old people own answering machines? After the next try, it occurred to Liz and me that all of the people we were trying to reach were born before World War I. Perhaps they were just overwhelmed by the dramatic technological advancements during the past eighty-some-odd years. Was the answering machine simply another advancement in technology not worth their time to master?

Now, the rest of this story is irrelevant to my insight, so I will end this segment of my observation with a simple question. What possible connection could this tale have with parenting teenagers in 2005?