My daughter Jenny was eight when she first asked me for a phone . I was a bit taken aback, but – thinking about it – I realised it probably seemed to her like everyone else had one. At least half her class already owned a mobile , as did her parents, her older cousins, and even her grandads.
But two years on, and nearing the last term of year five at a small village school , she still doesn’t have a phone . I don’t want her to until she’s at least 12 or 13 – for many reasons. Jenny’s in a class of 20 and she’s one of two who don’t have their own phone.
We’ve resisted getting her one, initially because we didn’t see the need. When I got my first phone at 19, it was from the necessity of having a means of communication driving around country lanes as a new driver – in case anything happened. Am I being old fashioned telling her there’s ‘no need’ for one, when she’s dropped off and collected from a school 200 metres from our house? She’s 10, what could she possibly need one for? But as she’s grown older, she’s asking for her own phone more and more.
Now, it’s almost a daily occurrence. At first, the question was: ‘Can I get my own phone?’ Then it became: ‘Can I get my own phone, maybe I can use an old one of yours?’; followed by: ‘Everyone in my class has got one,’; becoming: ‘When I get my phone, can it be..
.’. My husband and I have tentatively agreed that she can have a mobile when she goes to secondary school, with the i.
