17 Things You Should Plan On Explaining To Your Future Children

1. Patience, because once upon a time instant indulgence wasn’t everywhere. If we want to know the name of the song currently playing (Shazam) or check IMDB to find out what movies Shaquille O’Neal has starred in (Kazaam) or stream a clip of an obscure, animated 90s TV series (KaBlam!), we can do it immediately. Who knows what kind of technology will exist by the time our kids are old enough to use it, but it’s a safe bet that it’ll be even faster.

2. We used to have these things called pennies that were the equivalent of one cent.

3. The plethora of ‘twerking’ Vines that are left undeleted. All those gyrating cabooses sitting there looping every 6-seconds for the past decade.

4. Incriminating Facebook photo albums from our early twenties. Everything including but not limited to the innuendo filled titles and the sloppy photos they’re filled with.

5. Every time it plays on the oldies station, we’ll go into detail about just how popular Thrift Shop by Macklemore was in its prime.

6. Pluto used to be a planet. Also, perhaps we’ll even have to tell them how humans hadn’t begun occupying other earths and living in the triple-star system Gliese 667 yet.

7. The duckface and selfie eras, respectively. When 47% of photos taken between 2007-hopefully soon feature a person with puckered lips, it’ll raise a few questions. There’ll likely be some other ridiculous facial pose or popular method of photo-taking that feels logical at that time.

8. That back in the day the NFL allowed defensive players to tackle the quarterback. Surely we’re only three or four seasons away from two-hand touch style rules to protect quarterbacks and receivers from physical harm.

9. Basically all social media artifacts in general. Our ways of seeing what our parents were like in their less mature days are limited to black and white yearbook photos and stories that they filter sketchy parts out of. Our kids will have filtered photos and an abundance of unedited footage to look at, which is why we should choose our PG-13 hash tags carefully.

10. How gasoline used to be a measly $3-4 a gallon! What’s gasoline? Oh, it’s this stuff cars used to run on. What are cars? They’re the things we used to travel in before these Chevrolet teleportation vessels came out.

11. Song lyrics weren’t always readily available. There was a horrifying time in which singing along wasn’t so simple. If you were lucky, there would be song lyrics included in the CD case, but if not it was a hopeless, mistake-filled butchering rendition of the album.

12. It wasn’t always super difficult to find a library. I’d like to think they won’t ever cease to exist, but they’re already on their way to being the rare, holographic Pokémon card that only those interested in their treasures can appreciate. More importantly, who even knows what the state of print reading material will look like in the future, but I don’t see the library’s flame of life being reKindled (or reNooked) anytime soon.

13. Weed used to be illegal and people had to buy it from dealers and smoke in private places so they didn’t get caught. A little over 80 years ago the alcohol prohibition was a thing and now you can’t make it through an ESPN commercial break without being bombarded by the Dos Equis guy. It doesn’t feel like we’re too far from pot being legalized everywhere. Imagine Starbucks but instead of lattes and fraps, various blunts are offered in confusingly named sizes for those who seek ’em.

14. What it was like to be taught things on chalkboards and overhead projectors and other things that aren’t computers.

15. Planking, owling, milking, etc. This will be more difficult and awkward to discuss than the dreaded birds & the bees chat.

16. That at one point there were original films. We’re already essentially in a strictly remake and sequel era, but I’d imagine there’ll be 99% unoriginal content fairly soon. Also Jaden Smith Will Be The Biggest Movie Star In The World, So We’ll Have To Talk About How We Remember Him When He Was Just A Tiny Boy Starring In Flicks With His Dad.

17. Everything and nothing at all, because why explain it when every last bit of the information will be available to watch, hear or read within the pages of Google searches, YouTube clips or whatever other forms of data storage exist by then.