The wordless Snapchat universe

I was sitting in a cafe with my daughter, Mia, and her friend last Sunday.  
Like all 16 year olds, they were discussing how awful their friends were, and of those awful friends, who did what to who at last night's party.
And like all mums allowed to go to a cafe with their 16 year old daughter,I tried to look 
"acceptably cool,'" by sitting quietly, drinking my coffee and pretending not to listen to their conversation.

Best coffee in Chichester, Attibassi

The strange thing about their chatter, though (making it very hard to keep track of when you are pretending not to listen ) was that it in the end, it didn't seem to involve using many words.
" You won't believe what they sent me from the party last night?" Mia was telling her friend, " this Snapchat, with a picture of two of them smiling, doing a thumbs up with the word PT underneath."
I was itching to ask what PT meant and desperate to explain that PT wasn't a word, but bit my tongue, repeating 
 " acceptably cool, acceptably cool," in my head.
" OMG," said Mia's friend ( "you could use the actual words," I wanted to say ).
" I know," said Mia, " it made me so angry. I mean why can't they just go to a party without having to tell the whole world how cra..they are." ( " I think you will find the  word is crazy," I want to say ).
Since Mia had seemed to include me in the last comment, I took my cue to speak.
" Perhaps they were just taking a photo because they were having a really good time and wanted to remember it?" I suggested weakly, feeling my comment taper off into a question under the fierce gaze of incredulity that Mia and her friend turned on me.
" If they wanted to do that they wouldn't have done it as a Snapchat would they?" said Mia, " it disappears after like 20 seconds. And why would they be smile-pouting if it was because they were having such a good time. "
Cowed into silence at this logic, I carried on pretending not to listen.
" I know what we need to do," shouted Mia gleefully to her friend, " we need to Snapchat them exactly the same picture from here, you and me with our thumbs up, just like their photo and write AB underneath ( Attibassi is the name of the cafe we were in, best coffee in Chichester! ). 

Attibassi, coolest hangout in Chichester

Enthusiastically they set to work.
Posed, clicked and sent.
 Two girls, thumbs up, the gold and black Attibassi wallpaper in the background.
There was a few minutes of expectant silence and then Mia's phone buzzed.
" Look," groaned Mia, showing the phone to her friend and me." i knew that would happen. Now everyone is going to be bitching about me all weekend.I knew she'd be angry.  Why doesn't she get that  it was just a joke."
" How can you tell she's angry?" I dared to ask, looking at the photo before it disappeared:
A tired girl, lips arching downwards making a weary thumbs-up.
Mia gave me another one of her withering looks.
" Obviously she's angry.  Look at her."
But before I could look anymore, the picture was gone.
The trouble with conversations without words, is that they are constantly open to misunderstanding … .and understanding each other is hard enough, even when we are talking. 
But where's the fun in words when you can spend the whole day misinterpreting pictures!

"I know what we can do," said Mia," we can go to all the shops in town and take the same photo in all of them…."
"Yeah," said her friend excitedly, " we could go to Top Shop,take the photo and put TS underneath."
" Or just take a photo of everyone around you Snapchatting and write BS underneath," I suggested..
Fortunately, Mia and her friend didn't hear me. They were too busy trying to get their smile-pouting poses exactly right.
Hugging my hands around my steaming cup of coffee, I glanced around the cafe. 
Sitting comfortably on the red, leather sofas or perched on high stools in front of the floor to ceiling windows, almost everyone was holding their phones up in front of them, taking perfectly posed pictures. 
 Dads with their kids, so that without words, they could show the world what  perfect dads they are.
Mums holding glasses of steaming coffee: "look at me," the image would say, " even though I'm a busy mum, I'm still so trendy, I have time to drink coffee from a  glass."
Teenagers leaning their heads together, hair gleaming or time-consumingly sculpted, perfect smiles on their perfect faces " look at the fun we are having while we are young and beautiful," the image would say.

" We've got to go now mum," Mia said, " Thanks for the coffee ( Nutella Mocha ) 
" Yeah, thanks for the hot chocolate," said her friend ( a whole bar of Montezuma chocolate melted in frothy milk) " it was delicious. Where shall we Snapchat first Mia?"
I watched them drift youthfully out of the cafe, feeling grateful that for now, at least, they were still using words instead of temporary photos to communicate with each other.

Perhaps I am just a conservative purist but I have struggled with text speak.
I find the LOL's and sos's and cra's and wht tme?s hard to take. 
Our 14 year old son, who has never been particularly interested in spelling things correctly, no longer needs to try. With his 30,000 followers on Twitter, spelling correctly is obviously a thing of the past.  The important thing is to say everything in as few characters as possible,so vowels are definitely a complete waste of space.
But even textspeak must be better than the "no speak," of Snapchat or Instagram.

I finished my coffee, carefully hid my very old-fashioned phone ( only letters and numbers, no camera ) in the deepest pocket of my coat, paid and left.
And walking through the busy pre-Christmas streets of Chichester, I watched the wordless couples, staring down at their phones, the teenagers giggling as they shared photos. the kids pointing out the latest mobiles in shop windows to their parents who were busy sending Instagrams on their own.
And if anyone had snapchatted a photo of me just then, it would have shown a picture of a middle-aged woman wandering through a phone-filled world and the caption underneath would have read:
" Lost for words."

The " 5- minutes- before -school," daily crisis

There's something about the 5 minutes before leaving for school that induces a daily crisis in our home.  It doesn't matter how calm the hour before has been, how friendly the teenage grunts or how willingly the kids have been woken from their dreams, the hand on the clock reaches 8.25 ( late for some I know ! ) and pandemonium sets in.
" Mum," shouts Joss from his bedroom, " where are my green PE socks? The ones I put by the washing machine last night before I went to bed.
" Probably still by the washing machine," I suggest.
" What,' shouts Joss, horrified, " you mean you haven't washed them yet?.  They're covered in mud."
" Mum," moans Mia, " where's my French book? I left it on the sofa last Tuesday and have you seen my…..nooo."

Looking for a Frenchbook in a haystack, I mean sofa!

Her questions die off as Joss dashes past and darts into the bathroom before her.
"Joss," yells Mia, " that's not fair, you've already had a shower for about an hour and I haven't even cleaned my teeth yet."
" Tell mum and dad to build another bathroom then," says Joss helpfully through the bathroom door, his words accompanied by the clicking open of a jar of hair gel.
By the time he emerges, each strand of hair perfectly positioned, Mia has found her French book but lost her geography homework and her compass.
" I left my compass on the floor by the table. Why do you always have to clear everything away," she complains, striding angrily into the bathroom.
"Mum," calls Joss from the hall, as he struggles into the blazer he has left in a crumpled heap on the floor, the button has just come off my trousers. Can you fix it? I have to go in like 2 minutes."
I walk into the kitchen to try and find a safety pin.  
Mia is doing her hair in the mirror over the kitchen sink.

" Why does my hair always look like THIS," she cries, " grabbing fiercely at one of her perfect curls. " It's not fair, why is my hair so horrible."
Joss stands still so that I can pin his trousers back together.
" Did you make me a hair appointment?" he asks. " my hair's getting so long."
I stare at his skin-hugging, side-buzzed hair and wonder what short hair would look like.
" And I need £2.50 for geography. If I don't have it by today, I'm going to get a detention."
" Have you signed my letter for the theatre trip,"  shouts Mia from the living room, " If you don't do it today, I can't go." 
She tips the contents of her schoolbag onto the floor and hands me a crumpled note. " I told you about it ages ago. Why do you always leave everything until the last minute."

And I stand there, biting my tongue.
I could say, if you had both got everything ready last night, none of this would be happening.  
I could say, if you got up 5 minutes earlier there would be enough time for everyone to use the bathroom.
I could say, Mia if you put your things away instead of leaving them scattered around the house, you would know where everything was.
I could say, Joss, you must have known your trouser button had fallen off, why didn't you put on your other pair.
I could say, Mia your hair is beautiful, Joss your hair is short enough and neither of you told me about money that needs to be paid or letters that need to be signed.
But after a decade of experiencing the " 5 -minutes -before -school crisis point," I have learnt it is best to say nothing.
Nagging only causes rows.
Telling your teenagers that they should be better organised is as pointless as telling your Sat Nav it has got the directions wrong.

The truth is, just before leaving for school, your kids don't want solutions, they want stress.
The thought of spending a whole day sitting, listening to teachers, getting in trouble for breaking rules and generally doing things you would rather not be doing, is not something that fills most children with joy. 
A day at school is rarely something kids look forward to, even if it is not so bad once they get there.  
So of course they need to begin their day with a " crisis." 
It just reflects how they feel about school.
If mornings were calm and cheerful, we might think they like going to school.
How else can they remind us parents how hard their lives are.

So I sign Mia's letter and find £2.50 for Joss from the change scattered around the kitchen.
The doorbell rings.
" Holly's here," shouts Mia, " Have you seen my phone? Never mind, got it. 
Bye mum. See you later."
I listen to the giggles and chatter as they wander down the road.
" Bye mum," shouts Joss, texting his friend  as he strolls cooly through the door.


And I am left, standing in a quiet house, surfaces covered in safety pins and Mia's make-up. I find Mia's compass in the fruit bowl and wonder if she would find it, if I just put it back on the floor by the table.
But it's 5 minutes before I need to leave for work….and I can feel my stress levels rising!

The tragedy of data addiction

I spent a morning last week learning about how to better gather, use and analyse data.
And it made me sad.
I am the first to admit that statistics and numbers and graphs are not my thing. 
And I'm not proud of that.  
I look at a page full of lines and numbers and co-ordinates and immediately start dreaming of blank pages waiting to be filled with words and stories and pictures. 
I see a pie chart divided into percentage pieces and start wondering if it is time to pick the apples from our tree. 
Pie charts and statistics make me crazy, even when they are true.

It's a pie chart, so it must be right

Data analysis sends me into an imaginary world. A world where we do strange things like  talk to people instead of turning them into a statistic. A world where we know who people are because we have met them, not because they are a number on a piece of paper.

No, wait…... 
That's the real world.

The joy of working in a Children's Centre is that you get to meet everyone who walks through your door.  Whatever their background or ethnicity or needs or ability, you can welcome them, make them a comforting cup of tea or coffee, sit down and listen to them.
And maybe they have had a night of no sleep with a screaming baby, maybe they have had a row with their partner, maybe they have lost all their benefits or their job or their house.
Every day is different, every family has a story to tell. 
Sometimes it takes 2 cups of tea before we can piece together what the real problem is. And when we have,if we possibly can, we help and if we can't help, we try and find someone who can.
What are the graphic co-ordinates of 2 cups of tea and a box of tissues ?

But the data shows that not enough people walk through our sliding doors, that not enough young parents, dads, ethnic minorities choose to engage with our services.
" What you need to do," say the powers-that-be, " is use your data better….At least 30 to 40% of your time should be spent inputting and analysing data.That way you can work out who isn't coming and why."
Or we could just try and find them and ask them.

There are times when our centre is so full there is nowhere to sit, when we spend our days in a whirl of problem solving for children and parents . On those days, if you walked out of your office you would meet people of all genders and from all walks of life.
But if you did that, if you left your office, you would have to leave your computer.
And if you leave your computer, how are you going to have the data to show you who you should talk to.
And what if, what you are seeing with your own eyes doesn't match the data?
What if, by spending time talking to people instead of reading the data about them, you actually find out what they want.
And what if that's not what the data is telling us?

What people need, whether they are the most vulnerable families or the most affluent, is a familiar face and a welcoming smile to help them join in.
And we can only become familiar if we are out there meeting them.
They will only recognise our smile if we have met them before.
And we can only be out there meeting them if we are not sitting in front of a computer screen analysing the data about who we should be out there meeting.

You can sit with your back to the window and look at a computer screen to find out if it's raining outside. But you have to actually step outside, to understand that rain makes you wet!

The heart-warming coincidence of friendship

I spent last Friday night sitting upstairs in my friend's bedroom, while downstairs her teenage daughter (and mine ) were partying the night away.
We were under strict instructions, my friend and I: we were not to set foot downstairs unless summoned.
And we did as we were told. Obedient to the end, as all good parents should be.
Every now and then, Eliza ( my friend's daughter ) and Mia ( my daughter ) would come upstairs and check on us. Like reverse babysitters, they would bring us a few snacks and drinks and make sure we were still awake.  
And between visits from our daughters, my friend and I talked.  
She has two small children now, as well as two teenagers, so it's rare that we get such a stretch of uninterrupted time to sit and chat.
We shared stories and thoughts and laughter and memories.
And threading through it all was the coincidence of our friendship and of how a chance meeting in a park has led to such an interweaving of lives.

Our now teenage daughters were 3 when we met. 
It was a sunny day and on my way to pick up Mia from nursery, I took Joss (2), in the bike trailer ( I only mention it because it is an important part of this story )  to Priory Park in the centre of Chichester. It has swings and roundabouts and climbing frames, everything that a toddler could wish for. Only one other mum was in the park when we arrived.  She had a little girl about the same age as Mia. We smiled at each other and continued watching our own children, each of us looking for an opportunity to start up a conversation.
" Is that bike-trailer any good?"  she asked me at last.  " Only I've been thinking about getting one."
I grinned, relieved that she had opened the conversational door. 
" It's great," I said, " carries the kids, the shopping and even the cat sometimes.I'm Becky, by the way and this is Joss"
" Leisa," she smiled and pointed at her daughter who was busy climbing the steps of the slide, " and this is Eliza. You've got a daughter as well, haven't you?"
" Yes," I said, surprised " how did you know?"
" Oh, I was reading a library book with Eliza in the back garden yesterday and you cycled past." 
" I  cycled past your back garden?" I asked, " how did I do that. I usually only cycle past front gardens!" 
Leisa laughed.
" I think you have a friend who lives a few doors down from us," she said.
And she was right, when she told me where she lived, I realised that some our best friends lived two houses away from her.
" It's strange," she said, " because I had just been wondering whether I should get a bike-trailer and I looked up  and there you and your bike trailer were, cycling past." 
As we chatted I found out that they had just moved from Woking, that she had a son at primary school and that she was an artist and wanted to illustrate childrens' books.  
I told her that was strange because I was a children's author.
" I've always wished I could illustrate my stories as well as write them," I said, " you artists are a constant source of wonder to me."
" What books have you written?" she asked.
" Only a few," I said, " my first one was about an autistic boy and his brother….you probably won't have read it….."
I trailed off because Leisa was staring at me.
" Is it called " My Brother Sammy?" she asked.
I nodded, pleased and surprised that she had heard of it.
" Have your read it?" I asked.
" Yes," said Leisa, " yesterday. It's the book Eliza and I were reading when you cycled past!"

And that's it.
The co-incidence of a friendship that was meant to be. 
A few days after we met in the park, we went to Eliza's 4th birthday party in the very rooms, where downstairs, last Friday night, the music boomed and our two teenage daughters partied.
It's a friendship that has weathered many storms.
A friendship that has survived where even love has failed.
But perhaps that's the thing about friendship- it"s more constant and less volatile than love.

The joy of being a " grown-up," is that you can choose your friends.
Unlike when you are younger, your friends do not have to be your school peers or the children of your parent's friends.
As you get older your friends are not people you want to impress. There is no longer the pressure to be popular with as many people as possible.
Instead, your friends  are simply the people you most enjoy being with, the people whose company gives you the most pleasure.
People who you can comfortably laugh and cry with.
People who warm your heart.
Perhaps once you leave school or college or university most friendships are based on coincidence.
Perhaps they depend on two people being in the same place at the same time.
But I can't help thinking that there is more to friendship than that.
That there are people in life who you are destined to meet.
People who will keep cycling past the end of your garden until you look up and invite them through the gate.