Built in IT departments in filipino families

I can still remember the first computer my dad brought home. It was a 286, with two floppy disk drives. They were for the large, thin floppy disks that what quite literally, floppy and could hold less than a megabyte. The machine had no hard drive, no mouse and only a black and white monitor. I would need to have a boot disk to start it up each time.

As a child, I didn't bother much with manuals. I tried things out. I experimented and I learned how to use a computer far more quickly than did my parents. It was not long after that when the pentium came along and so did other nice things like the "graphic user interface." Much to my surprise, the older generations in my family were slower to accept the new technology than us little ones barely above a two digit age.

Through the years, I noticed that it was not only my family that behaved this way. Many other filipino families happily left information technology to be learned by the children. Both the grumpy grown ups and the curious youngsters were happy about that. It was a strange place for me. To be teaching things to my folks was pleasant in many ways but also a bit disconcerting in some other ways. I would always wonder if I would be so incredibly slow to understand technology when I grew up. If the "IT department" of my own family one day would be my kids as well. Would they roll their eyes at me when I clumsily fiddle with the newest gadgets?

Looking back, I think Filipino families have saved small fortunes through the curiosity of the children. For years, they served as little, informal, built-in IT departments. I remember agonizing over the thought of computer classes when they were first included in my grade school curriculum. It was a ridiculous idea for me because the computer was always a toy. I thought it was ridiculous that anyone would pay money to be taught how to use it. Silly me. Nowadays, IT is big business. People pay good money to have their homes wi-fied, to learn how to use software and to protect their data. As the cost of knowledge increases, so do the savings of many Filipino families with monstrously curious children who, at young ages, seem to always be gifted with tremendous TQ.