Thx anyway

"Mom, I'm coming to pick it up now," the daughter texts.

"Uh?" I text back.

“Sent thesis to print. B thr in 3 min."

I scroll through hundreds of messages from the past week. So somewhere among photos of crazy cats, a golden retriever on a skateboard and the question how to remove a mustard stain from a white blouse, there should be a document. Welcome to the communication between mother and student in 2026.

Sometimes I think it will be fun to print all those text messages one day. That endless scroll with a grammar and spelling that is fully its own. To read how the children changed from pupil to almost graduated university student. And how their mother reacted: "Do I look like an expert on mustard stains?"

But there are simply too many.

Because I still called my parents back in my college years – via a phone which hung on the wall, with a rotary dial you put your finger in – nothing remained of my exchanges, except when I was abroad. I would then write letters home. With a pen on paper. I would put these in an envelope, put a stamp on said envelope – which I had to BUY first, with real money – and took it to a post box. A ritual our children never went through.

The digital mail put an end to the shoebox full of preserved letters. My mother still has all of them. Those letters from America, sealed with tape because I stuffed too many blue lightweight sheets of paper in the envelope.

I recently finally got around to looking in that shoebox. The letters, neatly torn open with a letter opener – "What is that thing, mom?" – were each put back in their respective envelopes. It was touching to see how I emphasised I was not homesick in letters dripping with homesickness. Followed by a little arrow at the bottom, so I could add a final heartfelt cry on the other side: "Pet Tijgertje for me."

Putting them back in the envelopes – with post marks – turned out to be handy. Because I forgot more than once to write the dates on them. Now, I could see myself getting somewhat wiser while reading. Only after some time had passed, did I sometimes ask about the recipients. "How was your vacation?" The insight that parents are people too came with years.

But these texts with their abbrevs – wtf, b rt bck, 0 % – are not that bad, all things considered. They create their own intimacy. My children and me are only a single message away from each other. After a journey, I can see them in full frame anywhere in the world. Dull from lack of sleep, with a cracked phone which is almost dead, but still. Instantaneous peace of mind which my parents had to do without.

Now to find that document.

My cell phone lights up: "sry mom forgot to send doc <3 thx anyway".