Janet Christie: What a picture of domesticity circa 2012

IT’S Sunday morning around dawn and Youngest Child is chatting to the BoyF about a game she loves called Foot Ninja.

I keep my eyes closed, hoping they’ll shut up, but when I hear him say “Isn’t your Xbox online? You can just download it. It doesn’t cost very much. It’s a brilliant game, I play it all the time. I’ll give you a game,” it’s time for action.

“Foot Ninja?” I croak, feigning interest in order to kill the idea stone dead.

“FRRRRRRRRuit Ninja, god, mum.”

“Ha, ha, ha,” she and BoyF cackle in unison.

“It only takes five minutes,” he says.

Yeah right. A good hour later we’re still logging on, signing in, creating profiles, remembering passwords, feeding in card details (mine obviously), and the boys have joined in too. Everyone’s an expert.

What a picture of domesticity circa 2012. A cross-generational struggle with rip-off technology that takes aeons to set up and robs you (me) blind. Aw, but they’re loving it. Parasites.

Eldest sees me watching.

“While we’re doing this, you could be sorting the boiler. Work out why there’s no hot water,” he says. So that I don’t tell him where he can shove the boiler, I go and poke various dials. Pointless.

I return to whooping. They’re in. “Now we can play Fruit Ninja, yay!” they all shout.

Apart from Youngest Child. “I think I’ll go to the park,” she says.