(no subject)

[darchildre]

I love my mom very much but she is one of those people who, if you show them a useful thing on the internet, will (instead of, say, reading the website and clicking around to figure it out) immediately ask a million questions, the answers to which would be really obvious if she'd just read literally anything in front of her or scroll down two inches and it makes me absolutely crazy.

I realize that everybody learns differently and that's valid and fair, but my mom's learning style is directly opposite to mine (which is "read and experiment until I figure it out, ask questions of real actual people last and only if forced to"). The urge, after the first few questions, to just yell "Oh my god, just figure it out!" is very strong.

Comments

[james]

I am like this with people and new computers/phones/software. Like, just click on things. See what happens. That's how I learned most of what I know! There is almost no way for you to permanently destroy something by clicking on things to see what pops up, if you a) open a new document or b) avoid typing in your credit card #.

[brideoffrankenstein]

God I know. Why are parents Like That? It's exhausting....(btw, Loving the icon!)

[darchildre]

She asks people for help in stores too, instead of reading direction signage and finding things herself. ::shy introvert shuddering::

Thank you! It is my favorite film.

[silveradept]

Is your mother sometime who is convinced of either:

1. Computers hate me and I can't understand their mercurial ways


2. Computers are a completely unknowable black box and of I so much as look at them oddly, they will explode and delete all of my data

Because I have to work with both of those populations, and they are equally about asking all the questions without exploring anything and they want me to stay right beside them, often as they do the thing they wanted to do exactly correctly without issues.

Most of the time, best I can tell, they're afraid of what might happen if something goes wrong and don't think they have the skill to fix it or otherwise understand it.

[darchildre]

Oh yeah, with computer questions it is very reminiscent of work. (She has yet to lose her gmail login, thank god.) But Mom's like this with everything, not just computer things - if it's not her area of expertise (nursing or mixed media arts) she prefers to talk through things with another person as a learning strategy. I very much Do Not and I get easily frustrated answering questions that seem obvious to me.

[silveradept]

I like having a person to talk to when I'm learning something, so that I can ask questions and make sure my technique is good, but after that, it's usually tutorials and messing things up a couple times as part of a learning experience.

[tricksters_queen]

I have coworkers like this... For one of them it's just... You do this all the time, you always ask me to come over and watch you, you always do it correctly without me having to say or do anything, so why tf am I here watching you perform this task you obviously know how to do on your own, rather than say...doing my own work? For the other, she literally asks me how to do the thing, every single step, every single time and... just, how have you not learned how to do the thing yet? You've worked here for over a year. It's the same every time you do this. How...how do you not know how to do this yet? (I do not do it for her, in the very hopes that someday, doing the thing over and over again will eventually "click" in her head.) It's exhausting!

[frenchroast]

Oh, I feel your pain on this.

My mom and I actually had a conversation on the phone earlier today, where she was complaining about not knowing how to make mayonnaise. I was like "it's definitely on the internet" and she said that she just didn't want to look it up. SMH.