What is one thing your parents will never learn?

[TwoManyKids]

Light hearted!
My mum refuses to learn the difference between the WiFi and mobile data. She runs her data down at home (messing around with settings and accidently turning off wifi) and obsessively hounds waiters/baristas for WiFi codes when we are out! I keep telling her she is paying for data and she can use it!
What is something your parents can't get their heads around?
Also She'll also hopefully never learn it was me and now my sibling who dinged the car twenty years ago!

That the point of a mobile phone is that it’s mobile. You take it with you from room to room, not leave it in the kitchen and have to get up every time you hear a message come in.

Also getting an online banking app on your phone. Rather than going upstairs and booting up an ancient desktop computer that takes so long to boot up you can do half a dozen chores while you wait.

How much I dread it when she announces she is coming to stay.

Also...how to buy curtains without a massive performance. We are over a year into the New Living Room Curtains saga now. She just won't chose!

That PayPal isnt a scam.

MIL refuses to use them. But if she wants anything off ebay she rings me and asks me to buy it using my PayPal! The many attempts to tell her she can set up her own PayPal account are just met with "No way, I'm not getting involved.with that scam, they'll steal my identity!"

She's quite happy for me have my identity stolen though, if she spots an ebay bargain.

See also online banking. Still actually visiting the local branch for all transactions. But it's closing down soon so she's in a panic. SIL has offered to set up online banking for her, but she won't have it. It's all a scam, littered with online banking pirates just lying in wait to steal all her riches!

To be fair I have had problems with Paypal!

Anything related to computers and the internet.

That actually, you can just listen without giving “advice”.

That I'm working when I'm working from home!

That if you use maps on your phone when you're driving long distance, even if you do know the route/ have looked it up on your AA map, it will let you know of any delays and offer a quicker route that means you won't be stuck in traffic.

As the ancient mother I hope I never learn to go on my phone in the middle of a conversation, or when I’m a passenger being given a lift. I hope I remember that I can walk around, have dinner, watch a film and even go to the gym without holding my phone the entire time.
I don’t understand mobile data either, my phone company sends me a text two days after they’ve renewed it to tell me I’ve used it up even though all I’ve done is acknowledge a couple of texts. The phone still works though so I ignore the message.

To all those thinking their mum will never quite get the hang of techonology, it could be worse. We bought my mum a mobile phone. She put it in her apron pocket and never used it until she 'accidentally' flushed it down the toilet.

Anything technological. Computers, mobile phones, anything.
Despite my best efforts, they refuse to have anything in their home that could ' spy on them '
They're in their early nineties and refuse to have a cleaner for the same reason, they'd rather struggle on.

That your car has apple car play in it. I've shown you how to use it three times. So no, you don't need a separate sat nav. Although having actually used it once, I will let my dad off as he's blind in his left eye so, has to take his eyes off the road for too long. It's taken a year for him to actually try it!

To trust mobile tickets.

Everything must be printed out and kept in a folder.

My DMum (who has sadly passed away but was absolutely lovely) never learnt: the value of money or that she had enough (thanks to my DDad doing all admin/banking). She never learnt that fashions have changed from the 1950s and people like to wear shorts on Sundays, not suits (yes really). She also never learnt that being 20 years old (grandkids) in 2020s was different to the 40's! Bless her though!

My DPs use their mobile phone so infrequently they forget how to use it inbetween.

But my 93yo DF is still capable of cutting down a tree safely, and making lovely furniture.

Swings and roundabouts.

The problem is, if I try to explain anything to my dad. He says "who taught you to use a spoon"

How to use BBC iPlayer. Despite numerous walkthroughs in person and over the phone, plus written instructions. He has got the hang of some techy things but is generally quite wary and specifically stuck on this one. He's missing out on some great telly!

That I'm not a free therapy service

That endless self reflection and obessing about previous wrongs make you unhappy

That I don't want hear 234 alternative remedies if I have a headache

That I'm exhausted from being your therapist since I was 11

Sorry OP, not lighthearted

That if her phone rings she doesn't have to answer it immediately if she is doing something else. Messages too. Drives me mad.

As an older person myself, 58, why would you want to carry a mobile from room to room, that's just one more thing to remember to do. I have on line banking but for some reason don't trust the mobile app.

My mum has been on Facebook since 2010.

she still doesn’t understand that no I can’t see what so and so posted on their status last night because I am NOT friends with them. Cue me trying to explain again how it all works

she is a great baker though and makes lovely cakes, bread and biscuits so I’ll let her off!

To be fair I often leave my phone in another room either on purpose or accidentally.

i just can’t be arsed with the bloody thing sometimes

That saying 'we won't stay long' should mean that. Not 4 hours 🙄

My mum. That if I'm telling her something about our dog it isn't a personal slight about when she had a dog and how she looked after him.
Also that if you are doing a video call you don't have to put your face 3 inches from the camera.

My mother in law- any kind of online payment. She's convinced she will have her bank account drained if she so much as buys a new bin from Robert Dyas online. She will happily ring up and pay over the phone giving all her details to the person on the other end.

Dbro bought DM a mobile years ago, she put it in the hallway drawer, it's still there, never used.

My DM refuses to have a mobile phone at all. She's only 75, but if you want to contact her you have to call the home phone and if she isn't in, then tough, because she doesn't have an answering machine either!

She also doesn't have a microwave, hates showers and refused to put a shower in the guest bathroom (which she never uses, because she has her own bathroom). Instead, she put in a small bath that my DH doesn't fit in properly and wonders why we very rarely go and stay!