Dear Abby: Conflict with Ex Over Daughter's Cell Phone

[cereta]

DEAR ABBY: I bought my 11-year-old daughter a cellphone. My ex does not approve. We have been divorced for six years, and he still can't get over it. He despises me. He refuses to listen to why I want her to have a cellphone.

While I want her to be responsible with it, I realize she will make mistakes -- which she already has by being on her phone too much. (It has been taken away from her once.) I want her to carry the phone with her in case of emergencies. If it is confiscated at school, her dad will no doubt tell me, "I told you so."

Should I abide by his wishes and not allow her to have the phone, or do you think my points are valid? -- MOM WITH PHONE ISSUE

DEAR MOM: Wanting your daughter to have the cellphone in case of emergency seems valid to me. If you are her custodial parent, I think that prerogative belongs to you.

But I do have a question: Who took the phone away from your daughter? If you did it because she was abusing the privilege, then she will learn her lesson if you are consistent. If a teacher takes it away from her at school, there should be consequences and you should ensure that they are enforced.

Comments

[cereta]

Leaving aside custody issues for the moment, you know, years ago, I was one of those people who didn't get why ten-year-olds needed cell phones.

We got my daughter one when she was eight.

Biggest reason? We don't have a land line. Besides just the idea that she might want to talk to friends or family (she actually mostly texts, but I figure that's a generational thing), the notion of leaving her home by herself while I ran to the grocery or he picked me up after a migraine treatment began to present itself (and that's as specific as I'm getting about that, because wow is that another hot button). And we realized that without a land line, she had no way of getting in touch with us in an emergency. I would not presume that a cell phone is a necessity for all kids, but more and more, it's just a logical decision that is more about safety (and a parent's peace of mind) than it is some kind of wild indulgence.

All that said, I would be curious to hear exactly what the ex's objections were. If the ex has primary custody, or of daughter spends most of her time at ex's, I could see the objections more clearly than if daughter spends most of her time with the LW, or even if time is split more or less evenly.

[xenacryst]

Pretty much with you on both counts. Fanlet doesn't have her own phone yet, but a) our family life is such that she's almost never ever faced with the prospect of being alone in the house, and b) those rare times that she is, she has an iPad that can iMessage me, assuming our home network is up. And, for that matter, c) she knows how to use the emergency dialing on our phones in case we're there but incapacitated (we made sure of that when I got my first migraine last fall). I don't think it's at all unreasonable to want the kids to have a method of contacting people in an emergency, and I don't think it's that unreasonable for them to want to contact people outside of emergencies, too.

Actually, what this really pings for me is the fear of computers/tablets/phones/electronics/whatever that a lot of otherwise reasonable parents have. I've had friends ask me for advice on whether to give their kids tablets or the like (maybe they think I know something, having a kid and being in IT myself), and what's always at the root of it is a fear that the kid will misuse the device, get on the wild internet, and ... nameless terror. My response is that proper use of the internet is no different than proper use of a car, proper use of social etiquette, or proper use of your genitalia, and the best way to approach all of those is not to cover your eyes and forbid it but to engage, talk about, teach, and generally be a good role model. If mom here is doing those things, then good for her, and if she's not, she probably should. Dad has to realize that she's going to get a phone someday anyway, and ask himself what he's actually afraid of, and then work around that.

[minoanmiss]

I like how you put this. *takes notes*

[azurelunatic]

And I believe that even if the parental decision is that a child that age should not have a smartphone (or should not have unsupervised access to a smartphone), there do exist child-safed non-smart phones. Some of them with the ability to dial only pre-programmed numbers including 911.

[minoanmiss]

I wonder how much of this is a proxy war and if so who's fighting it.