Sup? Nm. Wbu?

Sup? Nm. Wbu?

For those of you over the age of 30, this is what mom's with tweens and teens get to read on their children's cell phones or Facebook pages. Now if you've read the title more than twice and are wondering if I made a mistake or you are doing your best to decipher the code, let me help you. The words in the title are a snippet of a conversation held every day with my daughters and their friends. It's translated in old people language like this: "What's up?" "Not much. What about you?" There, does that help?

I know I've mentioned it before, but I make it a point to read my girls' texts and Facebook messages now and again to monitor what they're up to. Since it goes against "cool" protocol to actually dial a 7-digit number and CALL a friend or perhaps even walk over to their house and knock on the door, texting, Facebook, Snap Chat, Instagram and who knows what else, are the only ways I can keep up on the correspondence my kids' have with others.

Now a few times I've found conversations that led my girls into some good, old fashioned grounding, but most the time I scan line after line of mostly abbreviated, somewhat boring conversations. They always start off with "Hey" and take the usual path: "hey," "hey," "sup," "nm wbu," "nm watchin tv," "ya me 2," "ya," "cool," "yep," "im bored," "ya me 2," "kk gtg," "kk," "bye," "c ya." (For those who are still learning, "gtg" means "Got to Go" and that can refer to leaving the house, eating dinner, going to bed, but in no way means having to use the restroom. Just so we're clear!)

I can't really figure out why they even start a conversation with each other. If it were me and my friends, I would wait till I needed to text them for a certain reason, or I would just text a quick "hello." If I want to shoot the breeze or am just bored, I'll call them. However, if my daughter's bored, it'll go something more like this: "hey," "hey," "sup," "nm u," "nm," "kk," "sooooo," "sooo wat," "wat u wanna talk bout," "idc," "u choose lol," "idk lol," "kk well bye lol," "k c ya lol." Then add some smiley faces. :) :) (Helpful Hint: "idk" and "idc" are translated to "I don't know" and "I don't care.")

Please note there are never capitals or punctuation used in these written conversations. I've learned this because I've tried to text or message back to their friends pretending to be my daughter, and I've gotten busted because how dare I use punctuation?! Or heaven forbid I actually spell out a whole word or even worse, type an ENTIRE sentence! Who does that, really?! These kids on the other end aren't fooled and know that ol' mom got ahold of the phone or computer.

I guess the days of two hour phone conversations or handwritten notes on notebook paper are long gone for kids these days. For moms my age, I can't imagine picking a random friend of mine and texting "sup" and them not thinking I messed up my text and pressed send too early. The big difference between my texts and those of my daughters is whole lot of extra words, several punctuation marks in their correct positions and, oh yeah, an actual PURPOSE for my text.

Oh well, I suppose I don't have to understand why they write useless texts and messages, but it's my job to keep translating their abbreviations and pray they don't keep adding new ones. Hard enough as it is.