My household is very seldom at the cutting edge of technology, so I assumed when we decided to drop our traditional phone line and use cell phones exclusively, we were at the back end of a trend that had already swept the country.
But as friends, relatives and business contacts aagradually became aware of the change we’d made, I discovered that this time we were closer to, if not at, the forefront of a movement. Of those individuals who had already gone home-phone-free when we did a year and a half ago, the typical demographic was young single people. We discovered it was still quite unusual for a household like ours – a suburban family of four consisting of two middle-aged adults and two school-aged children – to make what seemed to most of our cohort like a radical domestic change.
And yet people were curious. It turned out to be one of those things that a lot of adults were considering, even if they couldn’t quite persuade themselves it was a good idea.
For us, it’s been great. First of all, as with any new or unlisted phone number, our numbers were unknown to telemarketers, political parties, alumni groups and charities, and it has remained that way in the ensuing year and a half, so we get phone calls only from people who have a reason to know our number, either because we gave it to them directly or filled out paperwork they had access to or someone else we know gave it to them.
It also means the only people who call me are people who specifically want to talk to me, and the same is true for my husband. We’re no longer stuck making small talk with each other’s co-workers, college friends or poker buddies just because we happened to be the one standing closest to the phone when it rang.
Admittedly, this aspect also has a downside: there’s an intrinsic social value to some of those unintentional conversations. These days I almost never talk to my mother-in-law on the phone unless she’s deliberately trying to reach me to make plans or to ask me about a family event – most of the time, she calls my husband directly, and I miss the chit-chat we used to have before I put him on the phone.
Still, it saves a lot of time. No longer do I have to field calls from the parents of the kids on the baseball team my husband coaches. Either they reach him directly or they leave a message on his voicemail.
I also really like the privacy aspect of it. It is often argued that privacy is a casualty of modern-day society, and yet I like the fact that people who call me have no way of knowing where I am. When I answer my cell phone, I might be in my kitchen, I might be at the beach, I might be in a doctor’s waiting room, I might be at the shopping mall. This is useful personally but also professionally. Last year when I went to Colorado for a week, I didn’t even tell my editors; I didn’t want them to avoid giving me assignments just because I was out of town. As it happened, my editor did call while I was away to see if I could do a story that didn’t require on-the-spot coverage, and I was happy to take it on, because I often welcome the opportunity to earn some income while I’m traveling. If she had known I was away from home for the week, she probably wouldn’t have bothered to call me about the story.
The downsides have mostly to do with the overlap between being an individual and being part of a family. My 13-year-old has his own phone, but my 9-year-old doesn’t, and when her friends want to make plans, they use my number. This is fine if we’re all at home together but can be inconvenient if I’m out of town and she’s at home. I once called my husband while I was in Chicago to tell him that the neighbor down the street wanted to know if Holly could come over to play. It becomes a fairly inefficient use of communication at that point.
Going land-line free is also probably not a good idea for parents who often have babysitters in the house. In an emergency, you don’t want to have to rely on someone else having their phone close at hand.
The other caveat I mention when people ask about the arrangement is that if you’re accustomed to a household in which three or four different extensions ring each time you get a phone call, you have to remember that cell phones are one unit per number. That means if you leave your phone downstairs and you go upstairs, you won’t be able to answer the phone if it rings. And with consideration to extreme emergencies such as fires, you have to remember to bring your phone to the bedroom with you at night.
It’s worked out well for us, though. I’m not someone who gets inundated with phone calls, and I like knowing that if there’s information I need, it will reach me whether I’m home or away. Considering how many people have asked me about the arrangement, I really do believe it’s the wave of the future. And in this day and age, anything that gives an increased, rather than decreased, sense of privacy is worth at least a little bit of consideration.
Showing posts with label cell phones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cell phones. Show all posts
Friday, April 27, 2012
Friday, September 24, 2010
My phone, "The Brick"
Several weeks ago, when we asked Tim what we should give him for his birthday, he said he’d like a new phone. He’d had his current phone for a year; it was a hand-me-down from me the last time I upgraded. Unlike many parents of middle schoolers, for whom outfitting their pre-teen with a phone is a soul-searching decision, it wasn’t much of an issue for us. Tim really wasn’t that interested in deploying telecommunications; but since he sometimes walks home from school, sometimes rides his bike, and sometimes takes the bus, I thought it would be convenient if he could easily be in touch and let me know what he was doing. I knew he wasn’t interested in spending a lot of time talking to his friends.
So we were curious why he wanted a different phone at this point. He told Rick it was a cause for teasing. “My friends call it ‘The Brick,’” he said.
This seemed implausible to me because Tim’s friends just aren’t the type to tease, moreover, he’s not the type to have a problem with teasing. Unlike some of my friends’ kids who are the same age, Tim’s not particularly concerned with how he fits in or what other kids think of him. Perversely, of course, that means he fits in just fine and other kids get along easily with him. Plus he has that inexplicable and yet timeless advantage of being an athlete. Boys who are known for being good at sports are almost never subjected to teasing, according to a report I read not long ago, and Tim’s experience tends to bear that out.
Later, when we pursued the question again, he downplayed it. “It wasn’t really teasing,” he admitted. “Austin called it ‘The Brick’ maybe one time.” Really, he confessed, he just wanted a phone on which he could send text messages.
Because it wasn’t a convenient time in our phone contract to buy him a new phone, I offered to trade with him. My phone is nothing fancy, but it’s a very slim flip-phone with more features, including a screen that would make texting easy, so we also bought him a texting plan. All we needed to do was switch the SIM cards so that we wouldn’t have to change phone numbers and we were all set.
And so I ended up with the phone they call The Brick, and although I was a little bit grudging about the sacrifice, it turns out I actually like it. Understand, we’re not talking about the first generation of cell phones here. This isn’t like carrying around a cordless in my purse. In reality, The Brick was probably one of the last models made before the advent of flip phones. It’s not all that big and bulky; it’s just…thick and oblong.
And that’s actually an advantage to me, because the slim black flip-phone was always disappearing in my purses and bags. It would slide into a crevice and camouflage against the black interior; I wouldn’t be able to locate it even when it was ringing. With The Brick, this isn’t a problem. It sits stolidly in my purse like a chunk of ice, its lighter gray sheen easy to see against the purse’s dark lining, its moderate heft easy for my fingers to locate.
I’m fine with its lack of fancy features, too. Yesterday when it started tinkling that old familiar Nokia trademark ring, a friend I was walking with said “Oh, how European!” More like “Oh, how two thousand,” I thought to myself; she was clearly reacting to the fact that I didn’t have a clever sound effect or popular song for my ringtone the way most phones purchased in the past five years or so do. The Brick doesn’t offer a lot of choices, though, and the default ring sounds fine to me.
The Brick doesn’t have an interactive screen. I can’t surf the web or access my email with it. I can make phone calls. That’s all I really want to be able to do with my phone. While everyone else wanders around lost in the distraction of apps, tricks, games and features, I don’t think about my phone much unless it rings. Phones the way phones used to be, you could say.
In general, I tend to be attracted to gadgets and new accessories, but this time is different. When I want to make a call, I know how to do it. I have other gadgets that can take pictures, play music, display email and shoot video. I’m fine with The Brick, a simple, straightforward and solid piece of electronica that can do what I need it to do. And until I decide I need to hear a Van Morrison tune every time I get a phone call, I’ll stick with it.
So we were curious why he wanted a different phone at this point. He told Rick it was a cause for teasing. “My friends call it ‘The Brick,’” he said.
This seemed implausible to me because Tim’s friends just aren’t the type to tease, moreover, he’s not the type to have a problem with teasing. Unlike some of my friends’ kids who are the same age, Tim’s not particularly concerned with how he fits in or what other kids think of him. Perversely, of course, that means he fits in just fine and other kids get along easily with him. Plus he has that inexplicable and yet timeless advantage of being an athlete. Boys who are known for being good at sports are almost never subjected to teasing, according to a report I read not long ago, and Tim’s experience tends to bear that out.
Later, when we pursued the question again, he downplayed it. “It wasn’t really teasing,” he admitted. “Austin called it ‘The Brick’ maybe one time.” Really, he confessed, he just wanted a phone on which he could send text messages.
Because it wasn’t a convenient time in our phone contract to buy him a new phone, I offered to trade with him. My phone is nothing fancy, but it’s a very slim flip-phone with more features, including a screen that would make texting easy, so we also bought him a texting plan. All we needed to do was switch the SIM cards so that we wouldn’t have to change phone numbers and we were all set.
And so I ended up with the phone they call The Brick, and although I was a little bit grudging about the sacrifice, it turns out I actually like it. Understand, we’re not talking about the first generation of cell phones here. This isn’t like carrying around a cordless in my purse. In reality, The Brick was probably one of the last models made before the advent of flip phones. It’s not all that big and bulky; it’s just…thick and oblong.
And that’s actually an advantage to me, because the slim black flip-phone was always disappearing in my purses and bags. It would slide into a crevice and camouflage against the black interior; I wouldn’t be able to locate it even when it was ringing. With The Brick, this isn’t a problem. It sits stolidly in my purse like a chunk of ice, its lighter gray sheen easy to see against the purse’s dark lining, its moderate heft easy for my fingers to locate.
I’m fine with its lack of fancy features, too. Yesterday when it started tinkling that old familiar Nokia trademark ring, a friend I was walking with said “Oh, how European!” More like “Oh, how two thousand,” I thought to myself; she was clearly reacting to the fact that I didn’t have a clever sound effect or popular song for my ringtone the way most phones purchased in the past five years or so do. The Brick doesn’t offer a lot of choices, though, and the default ring sounds fine to me.
The Brick doesn’t have an interactive screen. I can’t surf the web or access my email with it. I can make phone calls. That’s all I really want to be able to do with my phone. While everyone else wanders around lost in the distraction of apps, tricks, games and features, I don’t think about my phone much unless it rings. Phones the way phones used to be, you could say.
In general, I tend to be attracted to gadgets and new accessories, but this time is different. When I want to make a call, I know how to do it. I have other gadgets that can take pictures, play music, display email and shoot video. I’m fine with The Brick, a simple, straightforward and solid piece of electronica that can do what I need it to do. And until I decide I need to hear a Van Morrison tune every time I get a phone call, I’ll stick with it.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Hanging up the phone to focus on the baby
An essay by pediatrician Claudia Gold in the Boston Globe earlier this week raised the issue of parents who talk on their cell phones when they should be playing with their babies. Meanwhile, the New York Times ran this story about parents whose kids are so frustrated by their parents’ distraction level, on account of the parents’ Blackberries, phones and computers, that the kids lobby for them to spend more time unplugged.
I’ve thought often over the past decade about the fact that for all intents and purposes, I didn’t have a cell phone during either of my two children’s babyhoods. In the case of my son, who was born in 1998, I simply didn’t own one yet. It was a short window of time in our cultural history when it was just beginning to be more typical to have a cell phone than not to have one, at least in my circles of suburban moms, but it wasn’t considered weird that I didn’t own one. When I finally bought my first cell phone in the spring of 2000, I joked often that I was the last person in America to have a cell phone, but in 1998 neither choice – to have a cell phone or not to – made you seem terribly unusual.
By the time my daughter was born four years later, it was unusual for anyone not to own a cell phone, but by then we’d moved to a semi-rural suburb where coverage was still very unreliable. I had a phone but couldn’t use it within town limits. So talking on the phone while at the pool or the playground or anywhere else when my children were very small was never a choice I had to make.
And for that I’m glad. My son went through a long phase during his first year when he was content only if he was being held or riding in a car; I don’t like driving all that much, so I usually opted for the holding option. I sometimes say now that if I’d had a cell phone at that time, my baby and I might never have left the car: I could have driven around, he would have been soothed, and I would have been occupied talking to my friends or my sisters by the hour. Since that’s clearly no way to spend a babyhood, I’m glad the temptation didn’t exist.
Besides, although it’s easy for me to say this now, with both my kids in grade school and the demands of infancy many years behind me, I think taking care of an infant is supposed to be kind of boring. Just as Dr. Gold says, ”It is certainly understandable that a parent would be drawn to the possibility of adult conversation [by using a cell phone]. Mothers may fear losing their minds in the face of the seemingly simplistic tasks of feeding, holding, and diaper changes. But in fact they are laying down the foundations of their babies’ healthy emotional development.”
But it’s not only for the baby’s sake. My theory is that parenting a baby is supposed to be boring for the same way long drives or housepainting are supposed to be boring: because it forces you to think, to let your mind wander. My freelance writing career took off when my son was eighteen months old; I think it’s because I had such a build-up of creative energy after that tedious first year of playground visits and nap schedules. Many employers have found the advantages of hiring women returning to the work force after time at home with an infant: their minds tend to be raring to go.
To some extent, this reminds me of a debate that cropped up when minivans were first outfitted with DVD players. “Now long family car rides don’t have to be boring; the kids can watch movies,” enthusiastic parents said. “But long family car rides are supposed to be boring; it’s a great American tradition,” retorted others. “Boring car rides are where you quarrel – and ultimately learn to get along – with your siblings. It’s where you play the license plate game and I Spy. It’s where you learn to watch the road and let your thoughts unspool.” And, of course, for some kids it’s where you do quite a lot of solitary reading. But not now, with DVD players, iPods and mobile computer games all available as options for kids on car rides.
I feel this way about airports, too. Strangers used to meet each other in airports, back when there was nothing to do but talk to whomever else was sitting at the gate. Now, no need to talk to strangers: you can make phone calls, get on line, work on your computer. I never see strangers strike up conversations in airports anymore.
And this brings me back to my point about how early parenthood benefits in some ways from the boredom factor. When there’s nothing to do at the playground but watch your child roll trucks through the sandbox, you become engaged in the process. You start to notice his interest in trucks and the way he manipulates the different plastic pieces so that he can excavate in the sand and operate the dump truck. You take an interest in this most mundane activity because you don’t have other choices, and you learn something in the process: what fun it is to watch closely as your own children develop and learn.
Moreover, as with airports, playgrounds used to be where parents met other parents. With nothing to do but stand there and push the swings, conversations arise and flourish. But not if the parents are on the phone. When my children were two and six years old, we had the opportunity to take a monthlong vacation in another state. I worried at first about leaving all my friends for a month, since my husband would be working and I tend to crave social company on a regular basis; but then I figured I’d meet other parents at the playground at our vacation destination. It turned out, however, that that didn’t happen. We were staying in a resort community where we were all vacationers and no one knew anyone else; at the playground, all the parents were on the phone talking to their pre-existing friends, and not that whole month did anyone strike up a conversation with me.
So I really like the idea that Dr. Gold is reminding parents to hang up and pay attention. Even now, I’ve avoided buying a smartphone because I don’t really want email constantly at my fingertips, and I avoid bringing my laptop downstairs with me once the kids are home from school and I’m doing things with them because I don’t want the diversion of email. The ability to concentrate on our kids is not a skill we should be willing to give up, but it does take practice.
Just as when Tim was a baby I would have happily driven around chatting on the phone while he dozed rather than carrying him around in my arms to soothe him if I’d had the choice, I admit that now there are times I’m a little more tempted by the idea of contacting an editor to follow up on a story idea than listening to my kids describe a recess event. But when I unplug and take the time to listen to them, or even to just watch them play, we all benefit. Just as parents have done for thousands of years, before there were other options beyond immersing ourselves in the sometimes dull but always important world of early childhood.
I’ve thought often over the past decade about the fact that for all intents and purposes, I didn’t have a cell phone during either of my two children’s babyhoods. In the case of my son, who was born in 1998, I simply didn’t own one yet. It was a short window of time in our cultural history when it was just beginning to be more typical to have a cell phone than not to have one, at least in my circles of suburban moms, but it wasn’t considered weird that I didn’t own one. When I finally bought my first cell phone in the spring of 2000, I joked often that I was the last person in America to have a cell phone, but in 1998 neither choice – to have a cell phone or not to – made you seem terribly unusual.
By the time my daughter was born four years later, it was unusual for anyone not to own a cell phone, but by then we’d moved to a semi-rural suburb where coverage was still very unreliable. I had a phone but couldn’t use it within town limits. So talking on the phone while at the pool or the playground or anywhere else when my children were very small was never a choice I had to make.
And for that I’m glad. My son went through a long phase during his first year when he was content only if he was being held or riding in a car; I don’t like driving all that much, so I usually opted for the holding option. I sometimes say now that if I’d had a cell phone at that time, my baby and I might never have left the car: I could have driven around, he would have been soothed, and I would have been occupied talking to my friends or my sisters by the hour. Since that’s clearly no way to spend a babyhood, I’m glad the temptation didn’t exist.
Besides, although it’s easy for me to say this now, with both my kids in grade school and the demands of infancy many years behind me, I think taking care of an infant is supposed to be kind of boring. Just as Dr. Gold says, ”It is certainly understandable that a parent would be drawn to the possibility of adult conversation [by using a cell phone]. Mothers may fear losing their minds in the face of the seemingly simplistic tasks of feeding, holding, and diaper changes. But in fact they are laying down the foundations of their babies’ healthy emotional development.”
But it’s not only for the baby’s sake. My theory is that parenting a baby is supposed to be boring for the same way long drives or housepainting are supposed to be boring: because it forces you to think, to let your mind wander. My freelance writing career took off when my son was eighteen months old; I think it’s because I had such a build-up of creative energy after that tedious first year of playground visits and nap schedules. Many employers have found the advantages of hiring women returning to the work force after time at home with an infant: their minds tend to be raring to go.
To some extent, this reminds me of a debate that cropped up when minivans were first outfitted with DVD players. “Now long family car rides don’t have to be boring; the kids can watch movies,” enthusiastic parents said. “But long family car rides are supposed to be boring; it’s a great American tradition,” retorted others. “Boring car rides are where you quarrel – and ultimately learn to get along – with your siblings. It’s where you play the license plate game and I Spy. It’s where you learn to watch the road and let your thoughts unspool.” And, of course, for some kids it’s where you do quite a lot of solitary reading. But not now, with DVD players, iPods and mobile computer games all available as options for kids on car rides.
I feel this way about airports, too. Strangers used to meet each other in airports, back when there was nothing to do but talk to whomever else was sitting at the gate. Now, no need to talk to strangers: you can make phone calls, get on line, work on your computer. I never see strangers strike up conversations in airports anymore.
And this brings me back to my point about how early parenthood benefits in some ways from the boredom factor. When there’s nothing to do at the playground but watch your child roll trucks through the sandbox, you become engaged in the process. You start to notice his interest in trucks and the way he manipulates the different plastic pieces so that he can excavate in the sand and operate the dump truck. You take an interest in this most mundane activity because you don’t have other choices, and you learn something in the process: what fun it is to watch closely as your own children develop and learn.
Moreover, as with airports, playgrounds used to be where parents met other parents. With nothing to do but stand there and push the swings, conversations arise and flourish. But not if the parents are on the phone. When my children were two and six years old, we had the opportunity to take a monthlong vacation in another state. I worried at first about leaving all my friends for a month, since my husband would be working and I tend to crave social company on a regular basis; but then I figured I’d meet other parents at the playground at our vacation destination. It turned out, however, that that didn’t happen. We were staying in a resort community where we were all vacationers and no one knew anyone else; at the playground, all the parents were on the phone talking to their pre-existing friends, and not that whole month did anyone strike up a conversation with me.
So I really like the idea that Dr. Gold is reminding parents to hang up and pay attention. Even now, I’ve avoided buying a smartphone because I don’t really want email constantly at my fingertips, and I avoid bringing my laptop downstairs with me once the kids are home from school and I’m doing things with them because I don’t want the diversion of email. The ability to concentrate on our kids is not a skill we should be willing to give up, but it does take practice.
Just as when Tim was a baby I would have happily driven around chatting on the phone while he dozed rather than carrying him around in my arms to soothe him if I’d had the choice, I admit that now there are times I’m a little more tempted by the idea of contacting an editor to follow up on a story idea than listening to my kids describe a recess event. But when I unplug and take the time to listen to them, or even to just watch them play, we all benefit. Just as parents have done for thousands of years, before there were other options beyond immersing ourselves in the sometimes dull but always important world of early childhood.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Cell phones, nail polish and other requests that throw parents
Amy Suardi wrote an interesting post about children and cell phones on the Frugal Mama blog today. I wrote earlier this fall about our decision to give Tim a cell phone now that he is 11. Tim didn’t ask for one; what he asked for was more afterschool freedom in the form of going to the library or the school’s “homework club” after dismissal, and when Rick upgraded his phone, it made sense to give the cast-off to Tim.
He doesn’t particularly like to talk on the phone, nor do his friends, so I wasn’t concern that he would misuse the privilege. It’s just helpful for making last-minute changes of plans, and eliminates problems caused by miscommunications or other complications that can result in missed connections, such as the day I told Tim he could go to the library for an hour after school and he arrived there to discover the library was closed.
As Amy points out, a lot of people equate cell phones with accelerating the growing-up process for kids. Although this hasn’t been the case for us, in that Tim’s cell phone is strictly a practical aid, there are other ways in which the debate about acceleration of childhood raises questions for me. For example, my 7-year-old loves nail polish, and I have no particular problem with her putting it on occasionally, especially since it’s something she often does as a social activity with a friend, but one of her closest friends is allowed only toenail polish and not fingernail polish. What is the message I am sending her by allowing nail polish? Is it that she has to add artificial color and shine to her appearance in order to look pretty, that what nature bestows on us is not enough? Or is it just that painting is fun, whether it’s on paper or on your nails?
Earlier this week Holly handed me her Christmas wish list, which included the line item “makeup kit.” This, I admit I balk at. Should a 7-year-old be taking an interest in makeup? But upon further reflection, I can see how a case could be made that letting her play with makeup at home wouldn’t be so different from letting her play dress-up, which she and a few of her friends do by the hour. I wouldn’t let her go out in public wearing blush or lipstick any more than I’d let her go out in my grandmother’s floor-length yellow silk gown, but in a way, both seem to me like reasonable ways of practicing the fun of masquerade. I’ll probably veto the makeup idea simply because unlike silk gowns, makeup has the potential to damage rugs, countertops and other hard-to-clean household surfaces, but not because I’m convinced it’s inherently wrong for Holly to play with.
When Holly was five, she started asking to get her ears pierced, something she was finally permitted to do on her seventh birthday. Some of our friends were surprised we allowed this, but for me, the reason to say yes ultimately had to do with Holly’s reasons for asking. It wasn’t that she wanted to look like an adult; it was that she likes the way earrings look and she thought it would be fun to start collecting them. She’s allowed only stud earrings or tiny hoops, no dangling earrings, and I think they look pretty on her. Moreover, getting her ears pierced for her birthday seemed to me a far more satisfying gift for both value and timelessness than a toy or other object easily outgrown. (Holly’s case was also helped by the fact that when I asked our pediatrician for her advice on ear piercing, she responded, “You forget, I’m from a Hispanic background. My daughters had their ears done at nine months.”)
Maybe cell phones, nail polish and makeup all come down to the child’s intent in wanting them. As with so many things, the objects themselves have no intrinsic meaning regarding who should have them and when; the debate really emanates from how the kids perceive them or plan to use them. Is the value of a cell phone in its use for communicating last-minute changes of plans, like in our household, or is it for furtively getting in touch with friends while bypassing the oversight of parents? I heard a commentator on NPR recently speaking about the small but seemingly critical component of etiquette that has been lost now that kids can call each other directly. No more, “Hi, Mr. Hatch. This is Tim. May I speak to Cole?” now that Tim can reach Cole directly on Cole’s individual phone. When I was growing up, if you couldn’t handle the challenge of speaking politely to a friend’s parents on the phone when you called, you didn’t dare call. (But for counterbalance, I read an essay in which the writer described the unexpected joy that his wife’s cell phone brings him: now that her mother can call her directly rather than through a house phone, he is forever free from the obligation of making awkward small talk with his mother-in-law.)
So in a way, it comes down to a riddle. When is a cell phone not a cell phone? When kids want it to send inappropriate pictures, offensive text messages or arrangements for meet-ups they shouldn’t be having, I suppose. When are clothes and makeup not just clothes and makeup? When girls Holly’s age want to feel and act like teenagers, rather than just like children in costume. If Holly wanted to dress like Britney Spears, it would bother me. But she doesn’t: she wants to wear my grandmother’s long silk ball gown. That’s not about growing up fast; it’s about playing make-believe. And as I see it, there’s nothing about make-believe that’s going to do her any damage at all. And Tim has a cell phone he didn’t even particularly want so that he can let us know when the library is closing early. Every decision comes within its own context, and parents learn to assess, evaluate and decide, one request at a time, over the course of many years.
He doesn’t particularly like to talk on the phone, nor do his friends, so I wasn’t concern that he would misuse the privilege. It’s just helpful for making last-minute changes of plans, and eliminates problems caused by miscommunications or other complications that can result in missed connections, such as the day I told Tim he could go to the library for an hour after school and he arrived there to discover the library was closed.
As Amy points out, a lot of people equate cell phones with accelerating the growing-up process for kids. Although this hasn’t been the case for us, in that Tim’s cell phone is strictly a practical aid, there are other ways in which the debate about acceleration of childhood raises questions for me. For example, my 7-year-old loves nail polish, and I have no particular problem with her putting it on occasionally, especially since it’s something she often does as a social activity with a friend, but one of her closest friends is allowed only toenail polish and not fingernail polish. What is the message I am sending her by allowing nail polish? Is it that she has to add artificial color and shine to her appearance in order to look pretty, that what nature bestows on us is not enough? Or is it just that painting is fun, whether it’s on paper or on your nails?
Earlier this week Holly handed me her Christmas wish list, which included the line item “makeup kit.” This, I admit I balk at. Should a 7-year-old be taking an interest in makeup? But upon further reflection, I can see how a case could be made that letting her play with makeup at home wouldn’t be so different from letting her play dress-up, which she and a few of her friends do by the hour. I wouldn’t let her go out in public wearing blush or lipstick any more than I’d let her go out in my grandmother’s floor-length yellow silk gown, but in a way, both seem to me like reasonable ways of practicing the fun of masquerade. I’ll probably veto the makeup idea simply because unlike silk gowns, makeup has the potential to damage rugs, countertops and other hard-to-clean household surfaces, but not because I’m convinced it’s inherently wrong for Holly to play with.
When Holly was five, she started asking to get her ears pierced, something she was finally permitted to do on her seventh birthday. Some of our friends were surprised we allowed this, but for me, the reason to say yes ultimately had to do with Holly’s reasons for asking. It wasn’t that she wanted to look like an adult; it was that she likes the way earrings look and she thought it would be fun to start collecting them. She’s allowed only stud earrings or tiny hoops, no dangling earrings, and I think they look pretty on her. Moreover, getting her ears pierced for her birthday seemed to me a far more satisfying gift for both value and timelessness than a toy or other object easily outgrown. (Holly’s case was also helped by the fact that when I asked our pediatrician for her advice on ear piercing, she responded, “You forget, I’m from a Hispanic background. My daughters had their ears done at nine months.”)
Maybe cell phones, nail polish and makeup all come down to the child’s intent in wanting them. As with so many things, the objects themselves have no intrinsic meaning regarding who should have them and when; the debate really emanates from how the kids perceive them or plan to use them. Is the value of a cell phone in its use for communicating last-minute changes of plans, like in our household, or is it for furtively getting in touch with friends while bypassing the oversight of parents? I heard a commentator on NPR recently speaking about the small but seemingly critical component of etiquette that has been lost now that kids can call each other directly. No more, “Hi, Mr. Hatch. This is Tim. May I speak to Cole?” now that Tim can reach Cole directly on Cole’s individual phone. When I was growing up, if you couldn’t handle the challenge of speaking politely to a friend’s parents on the phone when you called, you didn’t dare call. (But for counterbalance, I read an essay in which the writer described the unexpected joy that his wife’s cell phone brings him: now that her mother can call her directly rather than through a house phone, he is forever free from the obligation of making awkward small talk with his mother-in-law.)
So in a way, it comes down to a riddle. When is a cell phone not a cell phone? When kids want it to send inappropriate pictures, offensive text messages or arrangements for meet-ups they shouldn’t be having, I suppose. When are clothes and makeup not just clothes and makeup? When girls Holly’s age want to feel and act like teenagers, rather than just like children in costume. If Holly wanted to dress like Britney Spears, it would bother me. But she doesn’t: she wants to wear my grandmother’s long silk ball gown. That’s not about growing up fast; it’s about playing make-believe. And as I see it, there’s nothing about make-believe that’s going to do her any damage at all. And Tim has a cell phone he didn’t even particularly want so that he can let us know when the library is closing early. Every decision comes within its own context, and parents learn to assess, evaluate and decide, one request at a time, over the course of many years.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Tim telecommunicates
You know those times when a name pops up in the “from” column of your e-mail directory that makes you do a double-take? That happened to me yesterday. It wasn’t the name of a high school nemesis or a long-forgotten co-worker. It was my son Tim.
An e-mail from Tim? I thought to myself. It didn’t quite compute. I was at my desk beginning the last hour of my workday, and Tim was at school. Sure, I knew he had the capability of sending me e-mail; I was the one who had set up his account, just last weekend. I wasn’t really thinking at the time about how he would use it: mostly to send notes to his close friend who goes to a different school, I figured.
It didn’t occur to me that he might write to me. But when I opened the e-mail, I realized he had just gotten out of school for the day and was writing to me from the public library, his usual afterschool destination, to confirm with me what time I would pick him up there. How convenient, I thought. In the past, we’ve always had to finalize a pickup plan before he leaves for the bus at 7:30 in the morning. Now I was free to alter the plan just thirty minutes out, because Tim happened to be on e-mail and happened to have written to me.
We’re behind most families we know in terms of telecommunications and children. Most of Tim’s classmates have not only e-mail accounts but also cell phones, text-messaging capability and Facebook status. Last week when there were no computers available at the library for afterschool research, he and a friend pulled up Wikipedia on his friend’s iTouch. They’re all light years ahead of us. I’m still accustomed to making plans with Tim the old-fashioned way: deciding first thing in the morning when and where I’ll pick him up, and making it clear that he’d better be there.
But now he has e-mail, and in the very near future he’s likely to get his first cell phone, only because my husband needs an upgrade so probably each one of us will move one step up (I’ll get Rick’s outgrown one, which has advantages over mine in that it’s a flip phone and takes pictures, and Tim will get mine). This won’t exactly open up a world of technology to him: I have what I call the old-fashioned kind of cell phone, meaning all it does is make calls, and even those we pay 25 cents a minute for. Texting, not to mention the newer variations thereupon, won’t be an issue with my clunky old circa 2002 Nokia.
Objectively, it makes sense to me for Tim to have his own phone at this point. Like a lot of kids in our town, he likes to go to the library after school dismissal: he does his homework (that’s the rule if he’s not going to come straight home), then plays computer games for a little while and, as of yesterday, apparently checks his e-mail. I generally swing by to pick him up at the library an hour or so after school dismissal. It’s a casual plan that has worked well for the first two months of school.
Still, it will be a little easier once we can reach each other by phone to change or confirm pickup times. But I worry a little bit, with the phone and even the e-mail, that once I have the capability to track him down electronically, it will just become a problem for me when I can’t. If I rely on him to check his e-mail after school for changes in the pick-up plan, what if one day he doesn’t happen to want to check e-mail? As for the phone, I’ve reminded him several times that ringing cell phones are forbidden at both the library and at school, which means he’ll never embarrass himself by having it go off when it’s not supposed to, but it also means he’ll end up using it only when he wishes to turn it on. I can leave him a voicemail…but will he remember, or care, to check voicemail?
There’s no question that enhanced means of communication with Tim will be both an advantage and a disadvantage. During mild weather, he rides his bike to school and home. That’s definitely a situation in which I’ll feel a little better if he has a phone. But I can’t help thinking that providing ourselves with more agents of communication means simultaneously opening up the possibility of less communication, or at least proportionately less given the possibilities that will exist. What if I e-mail him, call him, and voicemail him – and he doesn’t respond? Won’t that leave me a lot more worried than if I didn’t have any way to get in touch in the first place?
We’ll get used to it, I’m sure. We’ll figure it out. Every other family does. But it’s still new to us, and I have no doubt it will take us some time to work out the details.
An e-mail from Tim? I thought to myself. It didn’t quite compute. I was at my desk beginning the last hour of my workday, and Tim was at school. Sure, I knew he had the capability of sending me e-mail; I was the one who had set up his account, just last weekend. I wasn’t really thinking at the time about how he would use it: mostly to send notes to his close friend who goes to a different school, I figured.
It didn’t occur to me that he might write to me. But when I opened the e-mail, I realized he had just gotten out of school for the day and was writing to me from the public library, his usual afterschool destination, to confirm with me what time I would pick him up there. How convenient, I thought. In the past, we’ve always had to finalize a pickup plan before he leaves for the bus at 7:30 in the morning. Now I was free to alter the plan just thirty minutes out, because Tim happened to be on e-mail and happened to have written to me.
We’re behind most families we know in terms of telecommunications and children. Most of Tim’s classmates have not only e-mail accounts but also cell phones, text-messaging capability and Facebook status. Last week when there were no computers available at the library for afterschool research, he and a friend pulled up Wikipedia on his friend’s iTouch. They’re all light years ahead of us. I’m still accustomed to making plans with Tim the old-fashioned way: deciding first thing in the morning when and where I’ll pick him up, and making it clear that he’d better be there.
But now he has e-mail, and in the very near future he’s likely to get his first cell phone, only because my husband needs an upgrade so probably each one of us will move one step up (I’ll get Rick’s outgrown one, which has advantages over mine in that it’s a flip phone and takes pictures, and Tim will get mine). This won’t exactly open up a world of technology to him: I have what I call the old-fashioned kind of cell phone, meaning all it does is make calls, and even those we pay 25 cents a minute for. Texting, not to mention the newer variations thereupon, won’t be an issue with my clunky old circa 2002 Nokia.
Objectively, it makes sense to me for Tim to have his own phone at this point. Like a lot of kids in our town, he likes to go to the library after school dismissal: he does his homework (that’s the rule if he’s not going to come straight home), then plays computer games for a little while and, as of yesterday, apparently checks his e-mail. I generally swing by to pick him up at the library an hour or so after school dismissal. It’s a casual plan that has worked well for the first two months of school.
Still, it will be a little easier once we can reach each other by phone to change or confirm pickup times. But I worry a little bit, with the phone and even the e-mail, that once I have the capability to track him down electronically, it will just become a problem for me when I can’t. If I rely on him to check his e-mail after school for changes in the pick-up plan, what if one day he doesn’t happen to want to check e-mail? As for the phone, I’ve reminded him several times that ringing cell phones are forbidden at both the library and at school, which means he’ll never embarrass himself by having it go off when it’s not supposed to, but it also means he’ll end up using it only when he wishes to turn it on. I can leave him a voicemail…but will he remember, or care, to check voicemail?
There’s no question that enhanced means of communication with Tim will be both an advantage and a disadvantage. During mild weather, he rides his bike to school and home. That’s definitely a situation in which I’ll feel a little better if he has a phone. But I can’t help thinking that providing ourselves with more agents of communication means simultaneously opening up the possibility of less communication, or at least proportionately less given the possibilities that will exist. What if I e-mail him, call him, and voicemail him – and he doesn’t respond? Won’t that leave me a lot more worried than if I didn’t have any way to get in touch in the first place?
We’ll get used to it, I’m sure. We’ll figure it out. Every other family does. But it’s still new to us, and I have no doubt it will take us some time to work out the details.
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