Sending Mum's text messages

[chestnutflower]

I know I need to teach my Mum to text but anyway

My Mum is in her late 50's and rubbish with technology, she can call people on her phone and send short text messages and look at her online banking and the weather forecast but that's about it.

I'm in my early 20's and still live at home with my parents so whenever my Mum wants to send more than a short text message she asks me to send it for her, so she'll tell me what to put and I'll send the text for her. I really need to teach her how to text don't I? I eventually at some point will want to move out from my parents and what will my Mum do then?

My grandmother is late 80s and technically inept and can send long texts .

Can't check online banking though .. Tbf no need

This woman is LATE FIFTIES, not in her eighties/nineties. “They” very much do embrace tech . “they” design most of it.

@LividLaVidaLoca I doubt it is anything to do with literacy. It’s a mindset thing among older women of lower SES backgrounds. It’s very well documented. I’m surprised by the reactions on this thread! Please don’t assume people are of lower intelligence because they struggle with tech, that’s really insulting. It can be due to lack of confidence, not having learnt what the etiquette is through social circles/work and perhaps poor eyesight too.

I find the replies on here quite shocking really- assuming people are of low intelligence or lazy because they struggle with tech. So judgemental!

It’s an iPhone for gods sake! Hardly complicated technology. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Sorry, but your mum sounds lazy rather than actually technophobic. My more mature DH would be the same, if I let him, but I make him do it. I’m the same age group as your mum and there’s no way I’d be asking my D.C. to send texts for me.

Show your mum how to use the dictation function via the microphone and then leave her to it. I think you need to learn to be unavailable and too busy next time she asks.

I'm 72 and have been texting for years and years.

Everything is dealt with online now, even more so since Covid. How on earth does she manage with everything else if she can't even send a text. And as pp said, if she can send a short text, she can send a long one.

Unless she has some reason for being unable to do things for herself this sort of faux helplessness would really irritate me.

@Lapsidasicle I'm certainly not conflating low intelligence and literacy issues.

Plenty of people have poor literacy for a range of reasons.

OP claims she can send very brief messages but struggles with longer ones.

Also to add I check her emails for her and send them or reply to them when needed but she doesn't get many emails so it's not too much work but I need to make sure she can do it herself.

Can you teach her to have a voice control text for her?

Your mum knows fine well how to text unless she has a significant learning difficulty (if she can access the relevant app to write a short message why not a long one??).

She just enjoys having her PA do it for her!!!

@5zeds

She needs reading glasses.

It certainly puts you off texting if you can't see! I sometimes ask my dc to help me with something I can already do as it's the only way to get a teen to engage with me! Maybe she is doing a bit of that OP.

I’m in my 30s, married, baby, and my mum still asks me to do this!

English is a second language for her, and so she gets self conscious about her written language so asks me to write it up for her. It drives me nuts but she doesn’t have the confidence to send long messages. Like yours, she’s fine with short messages, but not long.

Does she have trouble with spelling? If so, she needs to have spellcheck off, so it doesn't keep confusing her.

A friend's dad used to get her to send emails to his pal, for him (when emails were quite a new invention).
Until she used the time while dad was humming & hawing about what to say and wrote an extra bit saying that she was doing the typing for him because he was too lazy and/or stupid to do it himself.
After a surprised reply from the pal, her dad stopped asking.

My parents were divorced and at both our parent’s houses my brother and I were the only ones apparently capable of working out the video recorder. When I left home I had to leave detailed written instructions for its use, but now my mum is very capable of using the sky box to record whatever, has an iPhone and iPad and mostly has no problems. Once you leave your Mum will have to work it out, or she will decide she doesn’t need to.

If your mum can send short texts then she will be fine when you leave home. In the meantime, I will go against the grain and suggest that you continue helping her with this one thing that she doesn’t seem to want to do and/or is not very good at unless you are having to send multiple texts for her everyday in which case you may wish to be less available.

I think you need to stop doing it all for her and just supervise her doing texts/emails if she needs help or she is going to get left behind! One thing Covid has done is guide everything towards more use of technology. If she was 80 I'd say just crack on with what you're doing but as she's late 50's she needs to learn. I'm also late 50's and I know what my 20 something DS's response would be if I asked him to write my texts & emails!

Maybe she feels sorry for you still living with her and is trying to make you feel more important. Of course she can text if she wants to.

Or, it's the "you make a lovely cup of tea" thing.

This is nothing to do with age. This is your mother deciding to be lazy. You don't need education to be techie. If she can't spell, the tech will do it for her or tell her to use voice note.

I'm late 50s and I do everything my 24 year old daughter does and more when it comes to technology .... your mother needs to sort herself out

Does she need reading glasses? You can change the size of the fonts.

If she has never used a computer, maybe she struggles with the QWERTY layout. You can change to ABC on some phones.

Predictive text can be a nightmare if you aren't used to it so maybe turn that off.

Or teach her how to use the dictate function.

I know texts are vastly preferred by some people (they’re faster than voice notes, etc). OP, you said she’s already on WhatsApp and has an iPhone 7 or 8. So maybe talk to text is your answer. All she has to to do is press (not hold down) the microphone button under the return key I’ve circled in WhatsApp and it will “type” the words she says for her. Then press the “keyboard” button (im the other picture) in the same location when she’s done talking, and it will stop recording and the regular keyboard will reappear.

Stop doing it for her! She can do it but why bother if someone else will do it for her. Bet when you move out she finds her techno ability!

Can your mum definitely read and write? I know it sounds impossible but lots of people are barely literate and mask it very well.
Other thought is eyesight - might need reading glasses or phone in a bigger font.

50s isn't old. (At least I hope not as I'm not that far off your mum's age ).

My mum's in her 80s and fully competent with texting, emails, online banking, ticket booking etc. The ability to do things like that is really now just part if normal day to day life.

So she was in her 30s when mobile phones took off (and everyone had a Nokia 3310)?
There really is no excuse. She is just being lazy. Tell her to do it herself, and she will. Because it is not difficult.

RightYesButNo - wow! Who knew?
Thanks.

She'll get on with it! Im her 50s? She's more than capable of sending a text, they've been around for 20 odd years!