This contract is by and between __________ (hereinafter referred to as “Parents”) and __________ (hereinafter referred to as “Digital Natives.”)
By signing this contract, both parties agree to complete the following work for the Family WhatsApp Group: Written records of their workday, detailed accounts as to the wellbeing of their romantic partners and/or pets, and congratulatory messages regarding a particularly unflattering photo of a risotto prepared by a family member.
Both parties must agree to the following terms and conditions:
1. Digital Natives shall agree to check the WhatsApp group once every 2-3 business days, and their responses to questions from Parents will be longer than “yep,” “nah,” and thumbs up emoji.
2. Parents withdraw their right to contact Digital Natives on other social media platforms once this WhatsApp group has been established. All photos of shirts on sale at Barneys that they would previously tweet at Digital Natives will instead be delivered to this Family WhatsApp group. If this clause is violated, Digital Natives have the right to sue for damages to social media presence.
3. Digital Natives agree that they will not take screenshots of the Family WhatsApp group for use in any Buzzfeed list about Funny Text Messages Parents Send Their Kids. Failure to comply will grant Parents the right to recount in painful detail a true moment of weakness they have observed in the Digital Native, to a social media platform of their choice.
4. All communication within the Family WhatsApp group must take place only between the hours of 11 AM and 10 PM. Parents acknowledge that attempting to make contact with Digital Natives before 11 a.m. is unreasonable, as Digital Natives are still in bed attempting that bed yoga routine they just found on YouTube. Similarly, Digital Natives acknowledge that if a Parent’s mobile phone goes off after 10:00 p.m., they have no choice but to assume that one of the Digital Natives has been kidnapped by a drug cartel.
4a. The only exception to these time restrictions are messages sent from Digital Natives to Parents that include a list of random physical symptoms and a close-up photo of the back of the Digital Natives mouth, so Parents can confirm to Digital Natives that they do not appear to have a terminal illness. In exchange for this act of generosity, Digital Natives agree to respect and tolerate the videos and memes Parents proudly share with Digital Natives, and will not mention that they saw the goat yelling like a man video six years ago.
5. Digital Natives understand that it is not appropriate to outsource their messages to the Family Whatsapp Group to a writer on Freelancer.com—even if that writer’s CV does say they “excel at giving writing a personal touch.” Parents accept that after the 2013 Siri Racial Slur Incident, they will not use speech-to-text for any correspondence in the Family Whatsapp Group.
6. Parents are restricted to sending one job advertisement per week to Digital Natives. Parents acknowledge that receiving these job ads can be hurtful for Digital natives, as if they were to apply for them, they would be compromising on their creativity.
7. Digital Natives are restricted to requesting one Facebook like/share per week from a member of the Family Whatsapp Group for their confessional first-person essay about the pressures of growing up in an overbearing family.
8. Even though WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption that ensures no third-party can ever possibly decipher the data transferred, Digital Natives understand that Parents still don’t think it’s safe to discuss the exact location of the spare key for the back door.
9. No GIFs.
Finally, it is mutually agreed upon signing this contract that within 14 business days Parents and Digital Natives will have multiple bottles of wine at dinner and decide that the Family WhatsApp group should be shut down in favor of the usual weekly 10-15 minute Sunday telephone call.