1:41pm
Saint Paul
“Read this.”
My daughter handed me a 3 page sales letter.
The headline:
Why I should be able to have my own iPhone
Mom and Dad,
I’m writing this essay to have a serious and mature conversation about something important to me: getting my own cell phone…
Ruby is 12.
She has an Apple iWatch, which she swore would be enough to stay in touch. And an iPod for listening to music.
But she doesn’t want to just “stay in touch,” and music isn’t enough.
There’s a huge amount of social pressure to get a hpone when everyone else she knows has one –– including families who once agreed that they’re dangerous for impressionable young kids who spend their days comparing themselves to everyone else.
Ru makes a few good points in the letter, and a few poor ones (“battery life” is an issue no matter what device you have, dear).
But she fails to address our biggest concern:
Her inability to walk away from the screen to interact in real life.
Especially when the world, more than ever, needs people who can think!
(And yes, part of this is the pre-teen and teenage behavior of locking yourself away from your parents.)
You may remember a few months ago when we wrote up an “ornery contract” that Ruby agreed to, which included handing over the phone every school night at 7pm.
Well that doesn’t happen.
We have her iWatch and iPod both set up with Downtime. She changes the timezone to get around that.
We have the Wifi set to turn off at 8. That doesn’t stop her either, because she can still listen to downloaded music and scroll through messages and photos.
(Plus, for some reason, it doesn’t always turn off like it’s scheduled to.)
In response to this letter, my wife and Ruby watched half of the movie The Social Dilemma.
It’s important and worth watching if you’re a parent.
But it’s a bit boring for kids, and doesn’t at all address HER emotional interest of fitting in.
Which is heart-wrenching.
Because we thought we had parent allies in this battle. But they’ve ALL caved.
Last night, after a busy day of school, 2 hours of swim team, and a 45 minute violin lesson where she nearly collapsed from exhaustion…
And the drive home when all she could say is, “I’m sooo tired…”
She immediately hopped on her device for as long as she possibly could before we took it away.
What do we do?