Okay, she’s technically not a baby. And it’s technically not her first cell phone. Still, somehow it felt monumental.
We had tried a kiddie mobile phone first a few years back and it worked well. The first day she used it, she called me four times - once to tell me that the parent supervisor at the pool party she was attending just left for the pub. I was sold immediately on power of the mobile kid connection.
It wasn’t long, however, before my middleschooler was asking for a real phone. Really?, I asked. I suggested she save her real money if she wanted to make a real investment like that. So she did.
It didn’t take her long, either. A babysitting gig and a few allowance weeks later, she plopped down her cash on her first cell phone: a Virgin Mobile Oystr. It met all her requirements: cheap ($29.99), cool (sleek, white outside with the red Virgin logo) and, well…cool.
It met my criteria too. I agreed to pay for minutes, as long as they were for business only (i.e. to call me or work out after school plans, not chawing about the latest crush for hours), and the Oystr was cheap (.18 cents a minute, with a $20 minimum purchase every 3 months), non-committal (no contract, just prepay as you go) and cool (if she lost the phone, I estimated she’d be out $29.99, not much more.)
What I underestimated, however, was the moment. As she played with her phone wall paper, typed numbers into her phone book and chose her ringtone, I realized the threshold we were crossing. Not unlike the private phone in our bedrooms we parents may have finagled as a kids, this phone was a right of passage for her generation. She would remember the color of the phone, what she was wearing when she bought it, what she was thinking as the security buzzer went off on our way out the store door and exactly who she called to share her mobile number on this special landmark day.
And so would I. She’s definitely not a baby anymore. At least, not technically.
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