The other night, my teenage daughter and I were having a conversation. How this happened, I do not know, but it did.

After a while, it became obvious to me that she really had no clear idea of what I did when I was a kid. I was able to convince her years ago that the stories my brother tells are all lies, so she really has had nothing to go by.

I happened to mention that we didn't have a television in our house until I was five or six years old. She listened and then gave me a look that I had seen only once before. The only other time that I saw that look was when I told her that when I was a kid I had to walk a mile to school and then walk a mile home in the snow and it was uphill both ways. And we didn't have any shoes. She didn't believe me then and she didn't believe me now.

I understood when she didn't believe the first tale. It was a little over the top-my parents made sure that we always had shoes. But this time, I was telling the truth. Finally I convinced her that there really was no television in my world until the first grade.

She wondered what we did if there was no television. I told her that we got together as a family and talked. "Every night?" she asked.

"Yep," I said, "every night."

That was the third time she gave me that look. I went on to explain that my parents would read to us or we would listen to the radio.

"What kind of music did you listen to?" she wondered.

I said that some times we would listen to music but mostly we listened to the dramas and comedies. I explained that they were just like the shows on television today with one big exception. In my day, I had to imagine the action as the actors spoke what the author wrote. Today I have to imagine that it can't be as bad as it seems when the actors speak what the author wrote.

I realized how wide the "television gap" was. To us, "reality TV" meant the news. "Music TV" was the "Lawrence Welk Show" and sports programming was mostly limited to "wrestling from the Olympic Auditorium" and boxing matches from the Middle Ages. When people "pushed the envelope," they were usually selling stationary supplies. But, as it has to be, every generation needs to define itself.

Now, let's get back to the story.

I finally convinced my daughter that there was life before television. I thought I was home free. But, no, I had to keep talking. I told her that the television programming was only on for about three or four hours in the morning and three or four hours at night during the week and there was little or no afternoon programming.

I explained that we would play or draw while we waited for our programs to come on, but once the program started we stopped everything, because if we missed it we would never see it again.

"But what if you wanted to watch it later?" she asked. I told her that the only way to watch a program later was to start drawing again, really, really, fast. Then later, if we wanted to watch the show again, we could flip through the pages.

I don't think that today's teenagers are as confused as we think that they are. I think that I'm a pretty typical parent, so it could be that our kids aren't confused but rather too occupied with amazement that we parents made it this far without their help.

Teenagers today are a lot smarter than we were. I know that my daughter is, and I also know

that they think about the future much more than we did. So, it's no doubt that they spend their days beset with a terrible fear that, inevitably, the day will come when they will turn into us.