Does it go by age, necessity, maturity or affordability? Kids want phones and no parent wants to deny their child. So what, then?

 “You know, one day a phone rang in class. It was the same ring tone as my teacher’s. So we all went around the class searching; it was Rani’s dad calling Rani!” she said. Rani was my daughter’s six-year-old classmate. I thought six was a bit young for a phone.

This new age scares me. Though what scares me MORE is the fact that I’m beginning to sound like both my mother, and my mother-in-law. Just a few months ago, friends of mine were called by the school to attend a super-important, parents-only meeting to discuss the online lives of their children and how it was messing up their real lives. You know that comes with a phone, right? No self-respecting child would agree to carry anything but a smart phone.

I know. I’ve tried. Before my middle and third children came along, I was once the rad mother of a single child; one without foresight or agenda, except to make my child smile and help her look cool in front of her friends. I know you hear me. So when I thrust clamshells and old 1100s in the little Strawberry Shortcake handbag she carried, “as an emergency thing” in case she needed to call me, she would return it embarrassed, or silence it, and not answer my calls. Why? It wasn’t a cool-enough phone. At the time, she too, was six.

Now, six years later, things have changed. All her friends have phones, she has a social life that doesn’t always include me, and she looks and feels like a “teenager” – that magical age when you think you can fly but your parents are sure you’re about to crash. Then, suddenly, Father Christmas (my husband), suggests we give her a phone for Christmas. I’m flooded with conflicting thoughts. I can see pros/cons arranged neatly in two columns. We discuss them. On one level, I like the thought, especially since it looks like a leash to me – I can call her whenever I want! On another, it’s her ticket to a silent dark world – one that she travels alone. But. I don’t want to play control freak, she needs to develop her own restraint. *head spins*

 Calmly, Father Christmas explains that our daughter 1) is a mature girl, 2) needs to have access to a communication tool, and 3) HE will set simple rules for her to enjoy her privilege. In my mind, I’m thinking – “Will the seven and four-year-olds now want equal-rights … I mean, privileges?” But I don’t need to worry, because Daddy has thought this through. A racing game for our little man, and a Barbie package for little Miss Cute; they only have ‘rights’ to love right now.

On Christmas Eve, our 12-year-old nearly faints when she sees her first phone. She’s stuttering one moment, leaping and shrieking the next, squeezing her siblings and lying on my shoulder with glazed eyes like a puppy – all in extreme joy and disbelief. She has no words, and I hope it’s not going to be like this from now on; you know… with her phone and all. I have only one sentence for her – This is meant to make communication BETTER, don’t make it go the other way. She grins with glazed eyes. I don’t think she hears anything at the moment.

Days later, today, she’s out swimming while the phone is flung carelessly on her bed. “Oh no! Keyah forgot her phone,” I gasp in feigned remorse.

Who knows how long before it becomes part of her face, but for now, today, this moment – I’m thrilled!

This column was first published in the Bangalore Mirror in December 2014

Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash