Signing off on signatures

Our paperboy Daniel delivered more than the newspaper the other week. He brought to our front door an opportunity for my 14-year-old son Tavish. It was an opportunity to earn some money by taking over Daniel's paper route.

Tav has asked me on more than one occasion about getting a paper route. He has a buddy who delivers the newspaper and it's a good way for a young kids to earn some cash. And if he's earning his own money then guess who Tav won't be coming to with his hand out? Me!

A few days later Tav was called into my office for training. I say, ‘my office’ because I work at the newspaper in the newsroom. Now two of us will be earning a living dealing in newsprint.

I accompanied Tav to the training session and at the end of it he had to sign a contract. He carefully printed his name where it asked for a signature.

I found it strange he couldn’t sign his name but then I thought about it and it made sense. Kids these days are not taught handwriting in school. They learn how to print but handwriting is something they are never required to use so they’re not taught it. Assignments are typed, emails are typed and text messages are … you guessed it … typed.

As a result, kids have also never had to sign their names. A signature is just you writing your name. If you have never learned handwriting how could you have ever learned to sign your own name?

The other night Tav saw me writing in my journal. I’ve been doing this since I was his age and when I started journaling a computer was something few of us knew about and even fewer used.

I asked him if he could read anything I had on the page. He looked at the writing and asked what a few of the words were. Then he asked me why it looked that way.

“How do you read that stuff?” he said.

“This is handwriting,” I said.

Tav just looked at me with a “so what” expression on his face.

I understand computers have taken over the world. There are three laptops in my house, I use a laptop at work and when anyone wants to kick back and relax we typically use one of our iPads. We use keyboards for all our writing so there’s really little, if any need for us to use handwriting these days.

It just struck me funny my son did not know how to write his name. It’s just a sign(nature) of the times I guess. Or maybe I’m just showing my age.

I may sound like an old man but back in my day someone who couldn't sign their name was considered illiterate. Now we all have digital signatures. Pen at hand has made way for keyboard at fingertips.