My poor Iphone-less 13 year old

[married2mm]

I love technology, but I really love my money. I just can't justify any kind of smartphone (plan) for MYSELF, let alone for my poor, abused 16 year old. I keep telling him, much to his dismay, that we simply will not die if we can't access the internet for a few hours here and there. I mean, they sure are neat and I'd love to have one, but you know what's even neater? Groceries. Vacations. Cars.

I totally agree.
my son has a Nokia,talk and text only,can't even send picture messages- but he survives.
he too can survive without internet access for a few hours.
I told him he can have an iPhone,or whatever he wants,when he pays for it.

 

[NotUrsula]

Better still is a door opener with battery backup - my next one will have it.

I don't need battery backup; I've got arms. I just unlock the small door, pull the release cord, then lift the door by hand.

My garage is not attached to my house, and we keep the spare housekeys in -- yep, the garage. (Not saying where, but quite hard to find if you don't know where.) In the event that one of the kids lost their keys AND had a power-outage to the garage opener, the next-door neighbor has a housekey as well (and we have one of theirs). If somehow, none of those options worked in some extreme circumstance when it was too cold to wait outdoors, they could walk down the block to the firehouse "safe place" and wait there until we got home.

I'm one of those folks who tends to prefer gadgets that will work manually as a backup. I grew up in hurricane country, and you can go broke on batteries when the power stays out for a month, so I like my manual options, too. (I even own a hand-pull vacuum fuel pump!)

My DH thinks I'm a luddite because I don't like electric can openers, LOL. I just think that in some cases, the manual option maybe just as efficient as the power one, and can openers fit that bill for me.

 

[TXinmyheart]

Wow. I would never want my kid to wait for me for hours for a ride. They would need to have regular jobs to pay for a phone plan. What is that, 16 or 17 if you are lucky enough to get a job?

Well that is the difference between you and I. My kid will get a phone when my kid can afford to pay for one. If it is 16 or 17 so be it.

 

[marcyinPA]

We don't have iPhones either. My DS17 swears he is the only kid in his classes who doesn't have one, and sadly, I tend to believe him.

I told him he can get one when he can afford to pay for the data plan on a monthly basis.

Fortunately, DS13 doesn't care one bit that he still has a "dumbphone"...

 

[marcyinPA]

I love technology, but I really love my money. I just can't justify any kind of smartphone (plan) for MYSELF, let alone for my poor, abused 16 year old. I keep telling him, much to his dismay, that we simply will not die if we can't access the internet for a few hours here and there. I mean, they sure are neat and I'd love to have one, but you know what's even neater? Groceries. Vacations. Cars.

Same. We thought about surprising our kids with iPhones for Christmas, but I just could not justify the $100+ increase in our cell phone bill monthly. That is a big hunk of change.

We are also a one computer family, and we still have one of those big fat heavy box-style TV's too. Oh- and the REALLY cheap Dish Network with no ESPN! GASP!!

How will my kids ever survive life??

 

[goofyintoronto]

All the entrances are blocked with locks that can't be unlocked from the outside, so she had a garage door opener as her way in.

PS I knew I should have explained that up front LOL

Thanks for explaining! Ok here's another question. Why are the doors blocked with locks so that they cant be accessed from the outside? Lol.

 

[luvsJack]

Well that is the difference between you and I. My kid will get a phone when my kid can afford to pay for one. If it is 16 or 17 so be it.

And that is fine for you but for folks that decide to get their kid a phone, their choice is fine too.

There are no pay phones available at the places she goes. Not the mall, the theater, the high school, any of the venues where the choir or show choir performs or even at the church on youth night. We don't have a house phone and she is there by herself at times. For those reasons, she has a phone. For her wants/benefit she can stay in touch with friends, text, fb or whatever as she wants to. It makes us all happy.

She has a smartphone because she wanted one and because the cost was not any more than I was already paying.

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

I think there are differences between now and then that make cell phones more important for our kids than they were for us.

One is the lack of pay phones. I don't know where the nearest pay phone is to my child's school. When I was his age they had them on campus, down the street at the gas station, etc . . . Now, they have them in the subway but that's it. So, if he's far from home and something goes wrong it's hard for him to reach out.

One is that, for me, I believe there's safety in numbers. When I was a kid, if an activity ended early there were 10 kids who couldn't reach their parent, and we'd hang out, play tag, whatever. Now the other 9 go home because they can call. Of course my kid can borrow someone's phone, but given that you pay by the minute that gets old.

Finally, my kid has several activities where they say "we'll call you 15 minutes before they're done". That's just how they're structured. I don't think those activities existed when I was a kid.

 

[kim929]

I must be right up there with you as the meanest mom.
My ds11 just received an Ipod touch 4th generation for Christmas. He is happy with it.
He has a really old phone, no text and the phone doesn't even support data that's how old it is. He won't be getting a new phone until he is much older.

 

[indimom]

No iphones here. Personally, I would love to have one and to give the kids one, but they are simply outside our budget. We have four pay-as-you-go phones and it runs us less than $50 a month.
Out of DD's 14 friends, 12 have Iphones, she has the cheap talk and text phone, and one friend had no phone. I'd say that's a pretty common statistic for high schoolers around here.

And for the record, I do feel my kids need their phones. Times have changed. My DD15 babysits and several of the homes have NO landlines. How else would she call for help in an emergency?? Yikes!

 

[njmom47]

Ds (17) lost his 3g on New Year's Eve....I never saw a kid so down! As it turns out, his phone was found but it was wet and ruined. DD#1 was eligible for an upgrade so (she had previously had a 4 and it broke, so I had gotten her and ds the 99 cent 3g just so they would have a phone!) so she bought the 5 and gave ds her 3g with the promise of when she fixes her 4, she will give it to him.
Dh has a 2nd gen flip phone, and I don't have internet on mine. Again, both my dds are grandfathered in to the unlimited for $30 a month plan, but ds is not.
I don't like to talk about cellphone bills.

 

[U2_rocks!]

I love technology, but I really love my money. I just can't justify any kind of smartphone (plan) for MYSELF, let alone for my poor, abused 16 year old. I keep telling him, much to his dismay, that we simply will not die if we can't access the internet for a few hours here and there. I mean, they sure are neat and I'd love to have one, but you know what's even neater? Groceries. Vacations. Cars.

Too true!

Luckily DH and I have smart phones that are fully paid for by our companies. While that's great that it saves us money, it also means that we don't have a personal plan to add more family members to at minimal cost. So we decided to ease our oldest child in slowly by getting him a really basic pre-paid phone that we got for free with points earned on our land line and internet account, and we then just buy him $20 at each top up. He rarely uses the phone, so it's a bargain really. He is dying for a Blackberry because he's gotten used to the keyboard on mine, but no way am I getting into that expense right now! His younger sisters do not have phones at all - they don't need them, because they are always reachable. DS needed one because he is mature and independent, and he's allowed to walk and catch the public bus to places where he is not reachable for periods of time.

Cell phones are not allowed in school here, so even if the kid has a phone it has to be off and hidden in their bag - if it's found it will be confiscated. Another reason why I don't want them to have anything too fancy.