Thursday, May 06, 2010

Oldest son

My oldest son turns 12 soon. It's hard to believe.

We reached a major parent/kid milestone recently. My oldest son received his first cell phone.

It's just a basic phone with minutes on it. It doesn't have a camera or texting capabilities. It is to be used when his schedule changes at school, like when he plans to stay after school to do some music practice and then the teacher can't be there. He can call me and I will pick him up rather than him waiting for 45 minutes or so.

He has been very responsible so far. It's handy to ask him when we leave or he leaves, "do you have your cell phone?"

Still, it was strange to buy and hand over a cell phone to one of my children. It's a modern day milestone.

3 comments:

Kleanteeth said...

You gave in. There are a few kids in my son's 5th grade class that have phones, but I don't think it's necessary. We didn't have cell phones until we were like 22 and we were fine. I think they can hold out a while longer.

Molly said...

It's funny because I didn't plan on getting him one for a long time, but once middle school began, we saw it more necessary for him to be able to contact us. When he had a competition, I was able to drop him off and say call me when you're ready to be picked up.

He didn't want a cell phone (can you believe it?), but after he got stranded at the school a few times with no way to let me know he needed me to be there earlier to get him, he decided a cell phone would be handy.

The phone is a very basic phone and we add on minutes as needed. It keeps him pretty aware of how much time he is on his phone because he will have to ask us for more minutes as they get used up. The rule is that it is for calling Mom or Dad only. So far, so good. He is being very responsible.

The Roaming Rolfe's said...

I can't believe he is 12 years old!!! Wow! I remember him being just a lttle guy!