It’s hard to believe that we’re already several weeks into
ER’s middle school experience.
To handle the transition to sixth grade, I decided this was
the year we were really going to get our act together. A few weeks before school started, my sister and I
waited until Tim was out of town and organized our house to such detail that
when he returned, he growled when he couldn't find his nail scissors and said
he felt like a house guest. I pointed
sweetly to the organized leather box of nail accessories, undeterred. I beckoned Tim and ER into the living room so
we could create a hang file system with labels for each class. It was a bonding
moment. I drank a glass of wine and read the school subjects off of the class
schedule while Tim made labels on a label maker. ER helped by doing high kicks
and singing like Iggy Azalea.
The Having Our Act Together plan continued. ER went to
school before the first day and decorated her 6th grade locker. This
a thing now, in case you don’t know.
Gone are the plain Jane lockers of yore. Now, you can buy mini locker chandeliers and shag
locker rugs so your locker can rival a Kardashian bedroom.
We were completely ready for middle school until something
dawned on us. Something was missing. Our sixth grader doesn't have a cell
phone!
This is a big dilemma. While Tim and I tend to agree on most
parenting matters, we’re having a really difficult time getting on the same
page about the phone issue. In my view,
I think 11 is too young -- why rush growing up and being constantly connected?
What about the mean girl stuff? Tim
doesn't get what all the fuss is about; he's a practical sort. Plus, my stepchildren already set the bar,
because when they were in middle school, they came home from their mom’s with
cell phones. At first we thought it was
a little excessive, but with after school activities and two households, we
couldn't deny the convenience factor.
While we've been considering the options, ER has been
playing me like a violin. (Very possibly, Tim is the conductor.) On ER's 10th birthday, we were on our way to dinner when the grandparent
calls started ringing. I handed my phone over and said, “Answer it! Mimi’s on
the phone!”
“I don’t know what to say!”
she said, panicked. “I don’t have a phone!”
I handed her the phone and frowned. Tim offered a belly
laugh that lasted just a little too long for my taste.
ER continued gently but consistently working on me. She came home from sleep away camp in June and announced
dramatically that she was the only kid in her cabin without a cell phone. I
tried tough love.
“Well, you were the only kid without a phone and you
survived, and you still had fun at camp, right?”
“I guess…” she said, throwing her head back and sighing
while Tim snickered.
I began asking around. What other sixth graders had phones? One mom told me her sixth grader didn't have
a phone, but a cell phone was a good indicator that the kid had divorced
parents. True for my stepchildren, but not for my daughter, so that didn't help
much. Another parent admitted that they were considering GPS tracking to ensure
their kid was actually in class. Considering the kid in that case, I nodded in sympathy.
For other families like us who canceled their land lines
years ago, the decision was based on giving their children phones for
emergencies. Never mind that the
definition of “emergency” later morphed into using the phone for clandestine
sessions of Super Monkey Ball Bounce; after all, we’re all just figuring it out
here. For most of us, this dilemma didn't exist when we were in sixth grade because our parents couldn't
afford the gigantic radioactive bricks that were the cell phones of our day.
I’m pretty sure that I’ll cave on this one. The convenience
and safety factor seem to outweigh the other issues that we’re already facing
with email and modern-day social sixth graders. Mean girl stuff is going to happen whether a phone is part of the deal or not. It’s about open communication
no matter what gadget your kid gets. It’s our job as parents to set limits and
teach the safety and etiquette that you won't find in the instruction manual. After all, if this is the year we’re going to
get our act together, there’s probably an app for that.
