I can’t stand how my grandkids speak!

I’m sorry my fellow Starts at 60 friends but I’m throwing in the towel. I’m not normally one to give up but I simply have to. I’ve selfied and twerked and yolo’d my way along with the grandkids in an attempt to keep up but I don’t think I can do it any more!

You see, I love my grandchildren; I see all nine of them almost every week. We laugh and we talk, but sometimes I feel like we are speaking entirely different languages. They text me like adults using proper language and fully written out sentences but when they visit in pairs or groups I get lost.

Last week my grandson Rick said a sentence and I think, if my comprehension skills are up to scratch, that it went something like this; “Hey G-Ma I’ve had the most cray cray day. Eloise took a selfie of her and the new pup and then she insta’d it and the feed-b was cray”. I stared at him for a long time with a blank look on my face before I asked him to repeat it in English. What he had actually tried to convey was, “Hey Grandma, Eloise (his sister) took a photograph of herself with the new puppy and put it on the social photo sharing site Instagram. The feedback she received from people who “follow” her was great”.

I adore my grandkids and I do my best to support them, but I fail to understand why they choose to use this in-comprehensive slang when, as Rick proved, they can speak proper English very well.

Some of the words my grandkids throw around are: yolo, selfie, twerk, g-ma, TY, DL, sup, nup, cray, k, aight and idk amongst a litany of others. All of the grandkids are privately educated – their parents work incredibly hard to afford the educations they receive – but at the first opportunity they are happy to throw that out the window and revert to the “street talk”.

For a long while I have tried to keep up and not show my true feelings for this type of language and you could even catch me asking for a “selfie” with the kids while we’re on holidays or saying “yolo” (you only live once) when they offer me a second plate of dessert at dinner. But their conversations are saturated with these words.

I have no problem with the words and I understand that each generation has their own “slang” language. Quite often the words remain the same and just the meaning changes but there’s a time and a place and an audience!

I have no doubt that sometimes the kids are simply pulling my leg when they have a conversation amongst themselves, invite me in and then laugh at my misunderstanding. I don’t mind really even if the fun is at my expense, as long as they are happy and laughing!

But I with the younger generations would choose proper English as a first resort and their trendy speak as something just among their peers.

I’m sorry that I sound so grouchy saying this but I have tried to keep up and enjoy the words for what they are, but I just can’t anymore!

Tell me, does the language our grandchildren use annoy you too? Even if you don’t openly show it, have you had enough of TY, sup and cray too? Share your thoughts and stories in the comments below…