“Alexa, Please…” An Open Letter to Amazon’s Alexa from All Parents

“Alexa, please…”

It’s a phrase that would make all of us parents smile again.

After months in a new relationship (that came with a second grader), I’ve begun to not like Alexa very much. Here’s why.

• Everyone shouts commands to Alexa from where ever they are in the house
• No one says please
• Alexa doesn’t say thank you, or you’re welcome, she merely obeys our every shout

What We Are Teaching Our Kids with Alexa?

We should all have small electronic slaves in our house. We can shout at them. Prank them by asking them to do multiplication tables of an insane number. Get them to play dumb and offensive songs to irritate everyone else in the house. We’re basically teaching our kids terrible manners by using Alexa in our homes.

When kids get started with good manners it’s a bit tiresome to have to say, “Did you forget something?” After a few months of work, it still seems a bit annoying to the parent and the kid to have to interrupt the request to get a “please” thrown in. And even harder to get your kids to treat other kids with the same respect. “May I please look at your Plants vs. Zombies Minifigure collection?”