My sons keep talking to me in a language I don’t quite understand. I seem to have developed a catchphrase: “I see… I think.” which pretty well sums up how I feel. I understand the words, it’s the concepts I have problems with.

Of course this is nothing new; for centuries, indeed since the dawn of time, parents have had moments, sometimes long, langurous moments lasting years, when they have been unable to understand the first thing about their children. But this is different.

Being ages 8 and 11, their attentions are centred on trading cards such as Yu-gi-o and Pokémon. Even worse, about a year ago they started to design their own series of trading cards which have their own nomenclature, and they talk about them incessantly. Conversations such as “what did you do at school today” and “how’s life” seem to be short and stilted until the banter turns to the subject of DJ Cards, and then becomes suddenly animated, enthusiastic and passionate on the part of my sons. However I find myself feeling guilty at my lack of enthusiasm. Of course I love their imagination and their fabulous drawings, but I find it hard to keep up with it all when it’s a monotonic drone of cyber-dragons and machine prototypes which are, of course, of no consequence to a forty year-old man with all the stresses and responsibilities of real life.

I wish I was 10 again.