What is going on in this world? It is going way too fast for me and I wish it would slow down or stop for a while. What happened to the simple good old days when we would hand write letters, play night games, make friendship bracelets, listen to the radio, and go bike riding for hours? I don't understand why my almost eleven year old daughter feels the pressure to own a cell phone, iPod, have a Facebook account, wear skinny jeans, see You Tube videos, etc?
Last week Daughter One(a fifth grader) came home from school last Friday all bent out of shape!
Daughter One: "Mom, I hate my friends!"
Me: "Why do you hate your friends?"
Daughter One: "Because they all have cell phones and iPods and I will never own one of those!"
Okay, calling all parents out there? Hello, how is a ten or eleven year old mature enough to own a cell phone or iPod? Sure, she or he is old enough to babysit a small child and can make Mac and Cheese, but is she or he ready for the responsibility of taking care of electronics. There are a lot of things to do to maintain a cellphone/iPod. I cannot imagine my ten year old doing the following things IF she had a cell phone:
1. Charging her own cellphone on a regular basis and not loosing the charger in her cluttered room.
2. Updating personal contacts home, cell, and work numbers(Mom and Dad).
2. Remembering to delete text messages before it it reaches its maxed storage limit.
3. Setting the phone to silence before she enters the school building everyday and remembering to turn the ringer on after school in case Mom or Dad tries to call her.
4. Being prepared or on alert for the unexpected weirdo strangers calling or texting her because the previous owner of her phone number forgot to update his or her's new phone number change.
5. Dropping the phone in the toilet ewwwww(it happens not to me yet, gross, but it is a possible scenario that her phone could drop out of her pocket into the loo!
6. Having the risk of loosing, damaging, or her phone getting stolen by another kid.
I consider myself a mature grown up, however, I am prone to loosing my own cell phone, keys, or iPod Nano sometimes if I am not careful. Nobody is prefect! While observing Daughter One's behaviors, she is already having a hard time keeping track of her Nintendo DS games, Barbie stuff, hair pretties, books, etc. I have explained to her several times the trouble that my niece (Lou Lou) had owning a couple expensive electronics. Lou Lou has this tendency to leave her iPod in her pant's pocket and her mother is like me never checks the pockets before starting a load of laundry. Imagine all the money, notes, and treasures we find in the washer! Anyway, over the past couple years Lou Lou has replaced her iPod shuffle or iPod nano at least four times! OUCH! By the way, Lou Lou's parents didn't replace the iPods she earned the money by babysitting, doing jobs, and saving birthday money to purchase them and still neglected to take the devices out before she put her clothes in the dirty laundry bin. I wonder when she will ever learn her lesson? This same niece also had a cell phone when she was eleven or twelve years old and lost it. I can imagine it is hard to find a phone when the battery is dead or the ringer is set to silence. The idea of Lou Lou having a cell phone didn't last very long after that. Why would any parent want to replace a child's lost, damaged, or stolen electronic? It is terrible enough to have to risk loosing and damaging our own electronics but to add a child to the master list of all electronics (cell phone and some kind of mp3 player device), is just too much at stake! Furthermore, how can you trust your child to not go over their minutes or text messaging? Yes, I am aware of the pre-paid minutes and unlimited text messaging options, which are great, but one of my biggest issues with the cell phone is the camera feature. We cannot control the incoming videos or images that show up on our cell phone screens. How can I protect my child from the inappropriate material that could be circulating by a stranger on accident or from a contact she knows with different standards? Technology can be a very scary thing these days for some people who don't have good intentions!
Thinking back when I was around my daughter's age, my family didn't own a computer, CD player, or DVD player. When the new technology devices first came out, we usually waited a couple years. I remember having a VHS player, records, or cassettes, for a several years before we upgraded to higher technology. In junior high or high school, I went to the library to use a computer or I typed on my mother's old typewriter that usually had a couple letters not working. As for the telephone, my phone was hooked up to the wall and during most of my childhood we didn't own a cordless phone. Because I grew up with step siblings as well as my brother and sister, we had phone rules and if we broke them we were punished by having the phone privilege taken away. We were restricted to fifteen minute phone calls because like most pre-teen or teenager girls they tend to be chatty with their girl friends about boys, etc! Oh, now I wonder how do parent's these days monitor how long their ten year olds or teenagers are on the cellphone before they get the phone bill. I suppose you can just log on your cellphone account and check it but what parent wants to add that to their "to do list" every day?
Something just occurred to me, the radio is still free to listen although the material may not be so good anymore, but nonetheless, it is FREE no need to download onto a device which is another additional charge to having an iPod. There are websites like Pandora that will play music based on your genre preferece of music and guess what it is FREE! Yes, I buy music on iTunes for my iPod, which I take with me to go jogging, but do I really want to buy my ten year old Selena Gomez, The Jonas Brothers, and Miley Cyrus with our money? I suppose she could buy her own music with her own money, but why the hassle. It boils down to this and I maybe considered not a cool Mom! No, I don't think she is ready for an Ipod and cellphone!
My point to blogging my rants about telephone and music technology, is my daughter is growing up too fast! I wish she would just stop and enjoy the beauty of being a kid like playing dolls and pretending instead of trying to fit in the grown up world. I really hope she can try not to give into peer pressure at school. I seriously don't understand why those parents at school allow their ten year olds to have expensive electronics. The thing is Daughter One has only a few more precious years left of childhood before she becomes a teenager, which I am not prepared nor ready to face yet. Is there an accurate handbook on how to raise a pre-teen or teenager because it is creeping up on me very fast and I don't know how to stop it?
