Caleb Wants a Phone and Everyone Else Has One

Caleb wants a phone, and the case he made on Tuesday was a lot better than the one he made in March. In March it was "everybody has one." By Tuesday he'd gotten it down to four boys, a group chat they've been in since May, and a video one of them sent that he heard about at the park the next day and had to nod along to. He didn't ask for a phone, exactly. He asked to be in the chat, and a phone is how you get in.

I wanted to say no before he finished the sentence, and said "let me talk to Dad" instead, which he knows is the slow no. He went upstairs with a look I'd call dignified.

What he's actually asking for

It took David about four minutes at the counter to point out what I'd skipped. He was unloading the dishwasher when he asked what Caleb wanted the phone to do, and I said be in the chat, and he said, "So he wants a chat. That's different from wanting a phone."

It may not be different enough to matter, but it changed the order we talked in, and we quit arguing about the object and started listing what's in it: a camera, a browser, an app store, a way to be reached, a way to reach four particular boys. Caleb wants the last one, and the rest come along whether he wants them or not.

Somewhere around half of eleven-year-olds in this country have their own phone, depending on whose numbers you believe, and the share jumps at twelve. I read that and felt no better and no worse. It tells you what other families did and nothing about the kid at my counter who still sleeps with a baseball glove on the bedpost.

What we wrote down

Here's the rule, close to how David typed it into the notes app on his phone, which is its own joke. No smartphone before he turns thirteen, which is February 2028. Until then he can call and text from ours at the kitchen counter, and he can ask for the family iPad for a set stretch with one of us in the room. When he does get a phone it charges in our room overnight and stays out of bedrooms and off the dinner table, and we know the passcode. No social apps on the first one at all.

Most of that is what every list online says, and I'm not claiming we invented it.

What we argued about was the date. David wanted "when he's ready," because he thinks a birthday is a lazy way to measure a kid. I wanted a date because "ready" is the word I'd bend on some tired Thursday in February when Caleb has asked for the ninth time. We stood there until Biscuit gave up waiting by the dishwasher for a dropped fork and lay down on the floor.

He gave me the date, and I gave him the second half, which says that when it comes we sit down with Caleb and decide together whether it still makes sense. I'm a little surprised I agreed to that, since I was the one who wanted the date.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6

I've read that verse as a rule my whole life, and this week it read to me like a road. It says train, which means somebody's walking next to him for a while and then isn't.

Same house, two different kids

My brother Benjamin is an elementary school principal in Spanish Fork, and I called him Wednesday night because he's the only person I know who sees a whole building at 8:15 in the morning. He told me about a mother who came into his office in May. Nothing awful had happened. Her sixth-grade daughter had watched a birthday guest list get put together in a group chat, in real time, with her name not on it, and the mother sat there and asked him when she should have waited until.

He told her he didn't know, and then he told me why. His own oldest got a phone at twelve and was fine, and his second got the same phone at twelve under the same rules and wasn't, and he and his wife spent most of a year working out that it had little to do with the phone and a lot to do with which kid was holding it. "Same rule, same house, two different kids," he said, and then he had to go because one of his three was yelling for him from the bathtub.

Caleb is loud and affectionate and tells us everything, including things we'd rather not know about Biscuit. Lily is eight and asks for almost nothing. She will probably be the harder one, and I'd rather not write her rule by accident while I'm writing his.

What we're still unsure about

Plenty.

Whether thirteen is the right age. Whether I'm protecting him or only putting off something I'd rather not watch. Whether the four boys will have moved on to some other chat by the time he's allowed in one, which could be a mercy or a loss.

Then there's the team chat, since David helps coach this fall and the game schedule goes out on a thread on the parents' phones. Caleb will be sitting next to one of us when we read it. Sooner or later a boy will say something funny in it that Caleb should have been there for, and I don't have an answer for that one yet.

I told Caleb most of this, though not the part about Lily, and said we weren't saying no forever, that we'd picked a date and we'd talk about the date when it came. He asked if he could have that in writing, and I taught third grade for five years and found that very funny, and then I printed it. It's taped inside his closet door where he can read it from bed. He's also the kid who wanted to be able to say my mom said no to a friend, back when the question was one Sunday at the lake.

Frequently Asked Questions

What percentage of eleven-year-olds have a phone?

Around half in the US and more in the UK, though it changes with the survey. It climbs fast between ten and twelve, which is partly why the pressure feels like it showed up overnight.

Is peer pressure a good enough reason to say yes?

I wouldn't call it enough by itself, though I wouldn't wave it off either, because between nine and twelve a chat that leaves your kid out really does sting, the way that guest list stung the sixth grader in Benjamin's office. I'd ask what exactly he's missing and whether a smaller thing would cover it, like a phone call with the one friend who matters.

Isn't there a pledge where families wait together?

There is, it's called Wait Until 8th and it only starts once ten families from the same school and grade sign up. I haven't found ten. I found one other mom, which may be the actual point of it.

Does the Church say when a child can have a phone?

The Church doesn't name an age. It does have a parent guide called Taking Charge of Technology for Children, and one idea in it, turning your family on by turning your technologies off, is one I mostly fail at between five and seven in the evening. It hands you principles and leaves the age to you.

with love, Melissa