I ask, what is the right age to buy your child a cell phone?
My soon to be third grader, has been pitching Drew and I for a cell phone for a few months now. Because she has gone on and on about it, we have been forced to think about it and we are trying to figure out when the appropriate time is for her to have a cell phone. There are kids in the third grade at her school that do have cell phones, although keeping up with what others have, has never been important to me, but it does serve as a indicator of the tween movement.
A few years ago, I would have laughed (which I still do now) about the thought of buying a third grader a cell phone, but there are aspects about it that do appeal to me. Like, how you now can have an almost GPS system within the phone, so that you can tell where your child is and when they have gone outside of what you deem a safe zone. I do love the idea of that immensely. I also like having direct access to my daughter when I am not with her and not having to rely on someone else to either help her call me, or help me get in touch with her.
Drew and I are extremely diligent in our efforts to raise our girls in a label-less world, at least for as long as we can. When I hear other kids mention brands within earshot of my girls, I try the quick divert tactic. Either get the hell out of there fast, or change the subject. Both of which are quite easy to pull off without attracting attention to the obvious. So far, we have been successful. I am not under any illusions though that this will continue for too much longer, as we do live in New York City, one of the trendiest places to live. And I happen to have two of the girliest divas around.
This fact I knew the first time Lily, four at the time, had a major hissy fit and threw herself on the floor proclaiming she "just had nothing to wear." Now this is simply untrue. Belle and Lily have so many clothes, that they could not repeat an outfit for an entire six month period. I acted fast though to make sure that this stament was never made again, at least not in my prescence.
So ridiculously frustrated that my four year old could even be thinking in these terms, I rounded up just about everything in their closet that they were like so, so about and gave it to good will. We then hit a Macy's when they were having a sale, and I let them both pick out, only favorites that they absolutely loved.
I brought the clothing home and we re-stocked their closets. I told them that if I ever heard those words, "I hate all of my clothes, and have nothing to wear" again, they would get one outfit and wear that until they completely wore it out in the bottom and everyone would see their butts, and then, only then, would they get to buy something else. Since we have been without a similar incident since that fateful day, I think my tactic worked. As a rule now, I do not buy them anything more than they need. Less is more.
Anyway, the point of the whole post was to share you with the pitch book that Belle put together. She can be quite persuasive and really cute.
