Plus ça change?

Weather horrible all day (I'm told that calling it 'terrible' is confined to Britain) but I made a quick sortie to the Farmers' Market. I was amused to see these boys (children of three different stall holders) crouched under a table with their electronic games. It's not a brilliant shot as I had to zoom in but I liked the 'togetherness apart' appearance of the group and the eager face of the little one on the left who's peering at his friend's device. Once, a little gang like this would have been engaged with marbles or spinning tops or toy cars (or guns...) and there would have been more interaction between them, perhaps - but what do we know? It's so easy to make judgements about how children have changed. I don't think they have any more than any of us have, fundamentally, but we are carried along, like leaves on a river, as society changes - unless we do something to arrest the flow.

However, the grandmother of one of them, when I asked if she would be having a family get-together at Christmas, replied 'Oh no, the grandchildren don't want to come to us any more, they prefer to stay at home and play with their presents.' Which was kind of chilling, the prioritizing of material things over family cohesion.
Yet here they are together, apart, as ever in that private world of childhood.