When Is It Time for a Child’s First Phone?
Childhood’s exit is a thousand tiny deaths.
For example, it gets steadily harder to generate a truly quizzical look on your child’s face. I got one of the best ones ever when Nathan was 9 or so.
Nathan (hopefully): “Dad, how old were you when you got your first cell phone?”
Bo (casually): “Oh, about 23, I think.”
I can remember his expression exactly and wish I had a photograph of it. Of course, Nate was expecting an answer based on when my dad allowed me to have one. I gave him an answer based on when the technology was mature enough for me to afford it.
My first phone was an NEC, and a robust piece of equipment indeed. About three-quarters the size and weight of a brick, It didn’t even have an alphanumeric display. So it would do the best it could with its seven-segment display (i.e, ): 
How far have we come? Well, let’s consider that, shall we?
Is there a more profound manifestation of technology’s march than that small box you probably have tucked into your pocket or purse? If you have an iPhone, or a Galaxy, or a Lumia, then you carry something the size of a deck of cards with capabilities unthinkable in a state-of-the-art desktop computer not so long ago.
That blows my mind. Pause for just a moment with me and allow it to blow yours.
So a couple of years after the above exchange—as in, when his peers began acquiring phones of their own in significant numbers—Nathan started the full court press. My friends have phones, Dad. When am I getting one?
I deflected this noncommittally as long as I could, but I finally had to draw a line. This is what I said:
“Nathan, right now I know where you are, plus or minus 50 yards, every second of your life. Until that is no longer true, you don’t need a cell phone.”
Just a few days ago, it became no longer true. He went on an overnight school field trip to Birmingham. Lea and I discussed it a week earlier, and we agreed that he should have a telephone with him.
I purchased a pay-as-you-go flip phone for $15. This phone belongs to me, to be issued to one boy or the other when circumstances dictate that he needs one.
(This phone is so basic, but wow, $15? Remember when a color screen on anything was $200+?)
When Nate learned I was out getting a phone for him to take on his trip, his imagination went into high gear. Despite neither Lea nor I ever saying anything to stoke such, he had built expectations of a huge-screened, glittering smartphone, which were of course dashed when he saw it. (I felt a bit bad for him, actually. That his disappointment was unreasonably generated didn’t mean it wasn’t real.)
So it’s $2/day for unlimited nationwide talk and text, but I’m only charged if the phone’s used. It won’t be tomorrow, for example, so there’ll be no expense. Data is a penny a kilobyte. Obviously this billing structure is worlds from a typical smartphone plan.
On that note, we’ve decided that Nathan will indeed have his own phone when the new school year begins this fall. It is likely to be a middle-of-the-road smartphone. I have made it clear to him that while Mom and Dad will take care of basic charges, he will contribute to anything over and above, and that includes any significant data plan.
I haven’t worked any of those details out. I have a few months to gather input, and I’d like to start with you, dear Rocket City Mom readers.
When it comes to children and cell phones, there are a lot of possible paths, and it’s hard to know what to do. How have you handled the issue at your house? Any lessons learned to share? Leave me a comment and share your wisdom.
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