CELL PHONE PARENTING

My daughter was 16. We spent a February Monday evening reprogramming her cell phone after having it repaired. The very next evening she called me from it. It was that urgent call we all dread. She was the passenger in a car driven by another teenager and was now calling me from underneath a tractor trailer truck, where she was pinned inside the car. It was an accident that could have taken her life. Were it not for the fact that it was a small convertible she was riding in, it would have. My kids know I am always a cell phone call away. As are they.

Amy, I remember living in Europe eight years ago and telling (and writing) that cell phones would be essential as you describe. The response from the US, including a few editors in New York, was skeptical. When I told them that one in every two Finns had a cell phone (in '98), and that young kids were the fastest growing group, everyone had a good laugh. The next laugh was that Europeans actually took the time to type primitive text messages and send them to each other. Do you do that with your kids? I find it a lot more convenient at times than a phone call. More like e-mail.

Amy,

Great column. Now that I think about it, I forgot to mention that my beeper has always been on during the work day (on vibrate). When the kids were young, I got paged once or twice by the school nurse. Janice was the recipient of any non-urgent parenting calls during the day. If she wasn’t home, the calls went unanswered until she returned. So, I guess we were more available than in the old days and less available than today’s parents. Schools and kids didn’t expect immediate access and neither did parents. I don’t know if this was good or bad. If I had to field the extra calls, I would have had to change the way I organized my work day. I probably would have lightened my schedule a little and had a healthier life and more time with the family (by phone and in person!). I eventually did anyway.

Nowadays, the kids occasionally use my beeper about something they feel is urgent. After I get home and on non-work days, the pager is off and the cell phone is almost never on. Hence the complaints. But ironically, when WE call our kids, guess what -- 90 percent of the time we have to leave a message!

Rob

Amy,
I read your blog about keeping the cell phone on. Your situation is quite different from what ours was. In addition to it being in prehistoric times before cell phones were in common use, I was either working part-time (9-3) or in graduate school when Lora and Abby were young. When I was at work, I could always be reached in case of emergency and when I was at Pitt, I carried a beeper for emergencies. Rob will tell you, however, that I never paid any attention to my beeper unless I was specifically expecting someone to page me (I would typically leave it in my purse, which I wouldn't keep with me half the time, so I wouldn't hear it beep). This drove Rob crazy. If it had beeped on a regular basis, I would have probably taken it more seriously, but in actuality, it was virtually never needed.

The most important difference is that, with the exception of about 6 months in grad school, I was always available for the kids right after school, so the issues that you routinely face didn't happen. If I had been in your situation with long work hours, I might very well have done the same thing. Janice

Technology has provided security for my teen. I am a single parent, she is an only child. Her father, although living less than four blocks from us has not seen her in more than fourteen months. We have no family in the immediate vicinity and that puts you know who on call 24/7.

As a single parent I have to work and although some days I work from home, there are times I commute to meetings that require overnight stays.

My daughter is 13 yrs old and relies on her cell phone to maintain a connection with me. It provides her with a security that I can't begin describe.