I Give My Kids Cellphones Because I’m Afraid
I don’t want my 10-year-old to care about follower counts, but I do want her to text me if a shooter comes to school
My kids desperately wanted cellphones. My husband and I had decided to wait until they were in the ninth grade, a policy that was especially aggravating to my older daughter. She’s starting fifth grade soon, which means she’s old enough to know she is too young for most things and young enough to be uncertain about what “old enough” means. She seems to view a phone as the key to bridging this gap. I think she just wants to hold it when she doesn’t know what else to do with her hands.
The thing about cellphones and kids is… well, we’ve seen the thing about cellphones and kids. We’re all too familiar with the stories of cyberbullying, and children sexting children, and adults sexting children. We’ve scrolled through articles about the compression of young minds as the price paid for wallet-expansion in Silicon Valley. It’s become one of the biggest parenting questions: Do you allow your child to have a phone, with everything that’s going on right now? The fear is real, and I’ve bought right into it. How could I give my daughters cellphones when their small hands should be full of books, bike handles, and dirt? Now is not the time for YouTube and follower counts.
They’re both so young. This is most apparent on the ride to school each morning. They sit in the car with their legs crossed on the seat or pressed against their chests. Usually, one has forgotten to brush her hair and the other is rifling through her backpack, certain she’s left her homework on the kitchen table. My 10-year-old always has Band-Aids across her knees, and since my seven-year-old started wearing collared shirts over her T-shirts, she has developed a habit of tugging one sleeve down and the other up.
There has never been a morning when I’ve dropped them off and been sure I would see them again in the afternoon.
I try to make our drive to school the most secure part of our day together. My children do not get in trouble on the way to school; there are no talking-tos or exhausted reminders. On good mornings, we…
