Things you can’t believe your teenager doesn’t know

[Annoyingwurringnoise]

My teenage DS, who went to a Church of England primary school, does not know the song Little Donkey. I am utterly perplexed as to how this can possibly be. He’s been a donkey twice in nativity plays, once at preschool and once at school, but he swears he doesn’t remember Little Donkey.

What things have you found out your teenagers don’t know that’s just left you scratching your head in disbelief?

The song was only written in 1959 so the correct lyrics are well documented.

Ok sorry, the version I got on YouTube this year was busy.
I stand corrected and apologise if I was one of many, it was a long thread.

My admittedly ancient versions was “heavy load”, which clearly refers to the mother on his back, and then “safely on road”.

Must say I cant see other versions being at all meaningful, given the classic Christmas images of this little donkey carrying the Holy Family.

Precious load, not heavy!

I don't know what Mary would have thought about being described as a 'heavy load'. 😂

You’re quite right! Thanks for reminding me, a much more lovely description

Which can take two hours depending on the roads. An hour on the motorway, sure but many coastal towns are not served by motorways. Also, if it's a hot day everyone decides that the only place to be is the beach, so the roads are clogged. Goodness knows why anyone bothers, unless they actually live really near the coast.

Anyway, what this all has to do with things we can't believe our teens don't know I don't know!

The nearest “nice” beach is West Wittering about 25 miles. That costs £8 because it’s private - well access to the beach is ( you can argue it but given you can’t park nearer you have little choice. You see people sadly waiting for a bus that doesn’t come …my next point). It famously appears in the newspaper every year because the queue to get in is hours long

Ah yes, West Wittering. You wouldn't think there were any other decent beaches. It's simply a case of FOMO by the middle classes of Surrey and Hampshire.

There are plenty of other nice beaches, but that doesn't alter the fact that it's too cold to swim.

Not RTFL but this reminded me of the time I was mooching about in a charity shop and my son, about 15/16 at the time was absolutely fascinated when he found some vinyl records, he told me he’d only ever seen them in the film Shaun of the dead, when they throw them at the zombies 😂

Back to the OP thread, what your teenagers don’t know. My DD was doing some travelling time between school and University. She was in Cambodia and her friends were going to see The Killing Fields. She messaged me to ask what they were. It’s a shame that the History that is taught in school is so far removed from the more recent events which I feel are far more relevant to the world’s political stage at the moment. She went and was very shocked and emotional about it.

I was greatly amused by a comment made on social media by a young woman who had had her nails done in a nail bar. She had posted a photo of them a few weeks later saying how bad the nail bar must be as her nails had no Polish left near her cuticles. She did not realise that nails, like hair, grow! I despair.

@Ineke, your daughter could have done her research before going. Why is it the school's place to teach your daughter about Cambodian history?

I am sure many people in the UK aren't aware of the killing fields - or other atrocities that have been carried out around the world.

Nowadays of course it is possible to carry out research, use a wide range of resources, look at You Tube videos etc - and also not just have the resources that are in your country,

I think nowadays that is useful to see history from other people's perspective in other countries.

My son is doing the Cambodian killing fields in A level History. It just depends on the curriculum. Schools can't teach everything, particularly not about massive topics which grow every minute such as history. That's the job of parents, to ensure their children have a good general knowledge of the world.

Little donkey needs to carry on plodding onwards on that dusty road and make himself known.
I always thought it was a school staple, bit like Kumbaya, My Lord and Morning has broken. I guess things change with the times, I asked my son (28) and he just looked at me blankly.🤔

My teen thought that false eyes worked as in you can see with them??

I don’t think it’s shameful not to have heard of the Killing Fields at 18 - yes, it was a shocking bit of history but there are so many shocking bits of history, and it’

it is hard to have covered everything when you are not yet 20 years of age. I’d love it if schools spent far more time on history than they currently do, but even if they doubled the coverage time given to history, there is still a hard limit to how much can be done in that time - the thing about history is that there is just an awful lot of it!

I agree that parents need to be more on the ball here - take your kids to historical sites, read history books with them, watch documentaries on history with them (YouTube has EVERYTHING, seriously, there is no excuse) - and teach them to have curiosity so that they’ll be motivated to research the bits you don’t have time to teach them.

I’m 49 and don’t know the last time I bought a stamp. Years ago.

Don't you send cards to anyone at all?

'Bit different but I found out yesterday my 20 year old has never bought a stamp! Said she wouldn't know how to go about getting one!'

Probably just uses tik tok instead!