The Mobile Phone — Mama’s Best Friend

My advice of the day is to get your child a mobile phone. If you haven’t already. That way, when your child is bored in school, she can text her friends or check her Facebook.

Seriously. My policy is this: if they’re old enough to walk home alone, they’re old enough for a cell phone. I don’t even think I need to explain this position. Stay connected.

Here is a perfect example of why mobile phones are mama’s best friend. My daughter and a few of her peeps went to a party last night. This party was held at another friend’s house, which happens to be located a little way out of town. You get there by way of a gravel road. The little darling was on her way home, obediently recognizing her curfew, when one of her tires went flat. At 11:45Pm. On a not-well-travelled gravel country road. Four teenage girls on a dark road in the middle of the night? And they’re cheerleaders. . . Sounds like a horror movie in the making.

Enter the mobile phone. We got an S.O.S. call at 11:49PM. Off my husband went to rescue the cheer teens, none of whom had any clue how to change a tire. While he was gone, I reminisced about the days before mobile phones — the days before we were all linked to each other 24 hours a day. Well, back then, my crew would have been screwed, facing a long walk back to town, where we’d have to locate a pay phone. Keep in mind it’s January. Miss those days? Not so much.

So all’s well that end’s well there. Except my husband’s fingers almost froze off while he was changing the tire.

When my two older kids started junior high, I started them off with those pre-paid Virgin Mobile phones. Meaning to keep enough minutes on the phones just so they could keep in touch. Not thinking they had hit the point where they actually needed to use mobile phones too extensively. After all, they were addicted to AIM at the time. I figured that suited their communication needs. Wow. What a mistake. First off, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you those pre-paid phones are a RIP-OFF in terms of what a minute of usage actually costs. Secondly, kids + phones equal usage. They were constantly running out of minutes, and I was constantly “topping up” their phones (”topping up” being Virgin Mobile’s euphemism for draining my bank account). Do not make this mistake unless your child has developed some special, heretofore unknown immunity to talking on the phone. You will pay dearly — or, if you stick by your resolution to ONLY spend $XXX.XX/month on the phone, your lovely child could well be unable to use his phone by the 5th of the month. Finally, I had had enough. I handed the Virgin Mobile phones off to my parents, who are EXACTLY the people those phones are perfect for — THEY won’t use a mobile phone unless THEY are stuck on an unpaved gravel road at midnight with a flat tire. Which would never happen, since they go to bed at nine.

So we got in bed with Sprint, which was new to me, since I always had a mobile phone paid for through my work. I know Sprint was rated, not so long ago, as the company with the worst customer service in the universe. I actually haven’t had any issue with their customer service, though — in fact the customer service reps may be even a little overly friendly. For instance, when I bought my younger son the LG Rumor recently (for a VERY good price, thanks to his instant rebate and an online special), a very charming lady who works for Sprint told me that my kids are “very lucky to have a mother like you.” Hmmmm. . . well, yeah, they are, actually. Anyway. . . long story short: for a pretty reasonable, at least to me, price per month, all three of my kids have unlimited text messaging, free minutes after 6PM and all weekend, unlimited internet access, equipment protection. They walk around with the world in their pockets — or purse.

And what’s in it for Mama? This utter connectedness means they can’t escape me. There is no excuse they can give for being out of touch that isn’t obviously a complete and total lie. No more Big Brother — it’s Big Mama.