So, We Finally Got Our Teenage Daughter a Phone
So, We Finally Got Our Teenage Daughter a Phone

by Tommy Paley

Photo by Rob Hampson on Unsplash

“I’m the only one in my class without a phone.”

It was near the end of grade 7 for Charlotte, our 13 year old.

It was yet another crazy busy day of me frantically racing away from my job to get her from school and barely making it to dance class on time when she uttered this statement, both casual and attacking at the same time.

I’m such a proud father at moments like this.

While she wasn’t directly putting pressure, she was also issuing a challenge — are you really going to be that parent? The parent who consciously opts to ostracize their own flesh and blood— for those wondering, I don’t mean that statement literally, as the clean up alone would take days.

“Well…” I started boldly before slipping into silence hoping she’d be distracted by the inanity on the afternoon radio show or a nearby squirrel. As I made the final turns as we sped towards dance, I was searching for what path to take, trying to desperately avoid getting into an accident while also attempting to employ such profound and impossible-to-argue logic that she would drop the whole thing and resume her previous fascination with relatively harmless, inexpensive and non-addictive hobbies like dot-to-dot puzzles, friendship bracelets and witchcraft.

I wasn’t entirely sure, exactly, what I felt.

Parenting, in my experience, is full of moments like this. Confronted with a situation or a new reality — a fork in the road, if you must, though if you must, you should eventually look into this constant desire to place forks in roads, just saying. Forced to take action or make a statement that could irrevocably alter your family’s existence. Like my insisting that the whole family should wear matching 70’s era Adidas jumpsuits in public.

You may not always realize it, as parents, but each decision you make could be starting to blaze a trail, that once entered, there is no going back. Other similar past challenges involved limiting junk food, reading during dinner and going into the nearby forest to blaze trails with our brand new set of torches.

This wasn’t my first rodeo — no, that was back in 1996. But that’s a story for a different day.

“You aren’t getting a phone before grade 8,” I finally said, repeating an often-used excuse that typically ended conversations in the past before they even got legs. I find when conversations too often have legs it’s usually a sign to cut way back on eating the next-door neighbour’s flowers.

This time was different — she was older, wiser and had not only prepared questions, but had well-researched arguments, buttered-up complements (my love of both eating butter and buttering random objects up is well known by all) and, if it came to them, both ad hominem attacks and requests to treat me as a hostile witness.

“But why?” she pleaded, with me instantly regretting our decision to raise her by encouraging her to question things.

See, she had just returned from the grade 7 camp where, in the evenings and during downtime, devices were soon in everyone’s hands, as posts and likes and streaks and music and games took over. Based on her acrylic-on-canvas impressionist-style painting commemorating the moment that some local galleries have shown minimal interest in, it was one big group enjoying their technology, except our daughter, the outcast, the pariah. And, no, if you were wondering, we are not raising her Amish, though, if she wanted to construct a fully-functioning well or barn in the backyard, I wouldn’t complain.

It’s so hard to be the one parent doing something differently, no matter how strong your moral ground — “no, you can’t have a bag of sugar and red dye #3 for a school snack”, “I’m sorry, you are only 6, you can’t have a nipple ring”, “yes, you have to wear spandex to school just like I did when I was a young boy”. As soon as your kid gains awareness that everyone else is allowed to do things you’ve been preventing or denying or maliciously saying no to for years, it’s all downhill from there unless you live in a valley and are just too exhausted to hike up to the top of one of the nearby hills solely for metaphorical purposes.

Thankfully, summer came, full of beaches and parks and playing tennis and the focus on having a phone disappeared from view sort of like when I close my eyes when it’s bedtime or when I hold a piece of corrugated cardboard in front of an annoying work colleague when they are trying to talk to me. From time to time, my wife and I still tossed around the idea of getting her a phone while also tossing around a Frisbee or, once, an actual hot potato, because, we’d made one too many for our family — it’s hard to count to four sometimes — and I was raised never to let a hot potato go to waste.

The nagging issue was my increasing amount of grey hair with a smaller, secondary issue that, for the first time, she’d be taking public transit on her own in the fall.

So, the week before school started, we decided to practice because I’d heard once, from a reliable source, that practice makes perfect. I’d also heard, from a slightly less reliable source, that one should practice what they preach, but our schedules were just too busy for me to dedicate the appropriate time for preaching. In just over a week, Charlotte would be having to go to school and activities and, occasionally, to an undisclosed location where the pirate treasure was buried via bus and train. I couldn’t imagine my baby girl navigating public transit on her own. I also couldn’t imagine lots of things thanks to significant time being scolded for imagining too much on company time in my 20s.

For the first practice my younger daughter and I accompanied her as I led her through the steps and the directions, pointing out spots of cultural interest as well as some fairly nondescript crows. The second time, we, again, accompanied her, but sat apart from her, almost like we didn’t know her or, we knew her, but she had on a near-lethal amount of cheap perfume. As we sat back and relaxed and kept our distance and our feet elevated to reduce inflammation, she took the lead. Finally, on our third trip, she went completely on her own as my younger daughter and I hung out at a park and threw discs — in our family, we often fill the time by throwing discs, doing puzzles and mocking oligarchs.

It was 2 pm, the time she was supposed to return. No sign of her anywhere. Something made even more apparent by the ample signage in the area. Time continued to tick by as stress was building. “Where is she?” I bellowed followed by “How is my bellowing, it’s my first time?”

I wished there was a way to call her or, failing that, to send a series of hilarious, yet stern, stick figure drawings describing my unhappiness with her tardiness sent via post.

But, she had no phone, because someone — for argument’s sake, let’s say it was solely my wife — thought she wasn’t ready.

She could be lost or crying or running away to join a cult or even seeding a private organic garden without me, fully knowing my love of gardening.

And then it hit me, she had to have a phone. The flying disc also hit me as I was deep in thought. Finally, I was also hit by a falling leaf which, in context, was actually quite poetic. There was no denying it this time, unlike how I continued to deny that humans descended from chimpanzees and that eating tons of raw garlic may have some connection with why my family often dons hazmat suits when I’m around. It was clear, if she was going to be out in the world — often after sunset and, on an unrelated note, often wearing a wide variety of cute shirts— we had to have some way for her to contact us.

That evening, after a brief consultation with my wife that future family historians will describe as “fairly nondescript” and “reverential if we are being kind”, I took my daughter for a drive.

Thankfully, she had just finished relentlessly teasing her sister, so she had time.

Instantly, she started peppering me with questions — a welcome break from her peppering me with finely ground pepper or sprinkling me with coarse kosher salt — “why are we here”, “how long will this be?”, “if we see one of my friends, do you mind pretending to be a potted tropical plant?”. Then we arrived outside the phone store and her jaw almost literally dropped — investing in extra chin straps for preventative measures really paid off!

“Am I actually getting a phone?” she asked with a cautious excitement that many would reserve for receiving a stay of execution or realizing that a test result of ‘negative’ is a good thing. With a slow look to the horizon followed by a dramatic nod of my head — thank you expensive acting classes! — she released a loud shriek that, while temporarily causing mild-to-moderate hearing loss in my left ear, made me feel an interesting combination of happiness, trepidation and hunger all at the same time. For those wondering, I hadn’t had eaten since noon.

That first day with her phone will go down in the annals of history as a fairly normal day. She was busy setting up email and Instagram and Snapchat. Totally occupied downloading music and installing games and playfully taunting her sister “Where’s your phone? Oh, right, you don’t have one”. With one eye on the screen and her fingers frantically taping away, she promised her mostly-helpless parents to ask before spending our money to purchase apps and to not exceed her data despite how hard it will be and to not forget who her family members were. She seemingly went from a girl with a few friends to someone with hundreds of requests and likes and followers in minutes.

Now, it must be explained that I’ve worked in high school for years. I am not your out-of-touch dopey dad badly in need of a wardrobe update — though, once again, thanks to the acting classes, I can pull that off after some rehearsal time.

As a school counsellor, I’ve been around the block — precisely three times and it would have been four if my calf wasn’t so tight — plus my wife, is a teacher, too.

We were as equipped as two parents could be — aside from the couple across the street who are an annoying shining beacon of hope for us all. As our daughter entered the handheld technology phase of her life — it’s enough to make a grown man weep — we were prepared for the traps, the warning signs, the need for healthy boundaries and the importance of keeping fresh fruit in the fridge for snacking.

With a sunny optimism that others have referred to as “refreshing” and “puppy-like” and “cute if you were 6”— I believed our daughter could be one of the few teenage girls to learn to use her phone responsibly with next to no challenges. For reference, I also once believed that pigs could fly, but, in my defense, I was always confusing pigs with birds. I was also dangerously nearsighted and afraid of my own shadow.

She got off to a good start. She was using her phone for directions, always texting us when leaving school or coming home and occasionally posting on Instagram — she has three accounts: her regular one, one for her gerbils and one with pictures of food she has cooked (I’ve claimed she could combine the last two — not a huge fan of rodents, no matter how cute — but she didn’t find that at all funny). We had chats about being safe, not making your account public and not following anyone you don’t actually know and she not only nodded her head (mostly at the appropriate times), but also gave us a rousing standing ovation when we were done.

It was all going swimmingly. Even after school was in full swing and dance classes resumed, and her new social connections expanded exponentially, she was very good at putting her phone away during class or keeping notifications off and my wife and I were spending a lot of time patting each other on the backs — sort of like a mild massage really — for another parenting job done well.

I suggested that it was possible that we were placed here, on Earth, solely to as an example for all parents.

But then, almost overnight (technically it was during the day), things slowly shifted. “I have 900 followers on Instagram!” she boasted instantly becoming the most popular thing in our house since sliced bread. (Don’t worry, sliced bread, you had your day). She joined Snapchat and got a Tiktok account and all of a sudden, all bets were off. Our gentle — and grammatically sound — reminders to “focus on your work” or “don’t forget about your chores” or “it’s bedtime” turned into more frustrated “GET OFF YOUR PHONE” and “I DON’T CARE IF YOUR FRIENDS HAVE NO LIMITS” and

“I HAVE TO STOP RAISING MY VOICE BECAUSE ITS GETTING A LITTLE HOARSE AND, YES, I FULLY RECOGNIZE THAT GETTING A LITTLE HORSE IS FUNNY, BUT NOW JUST ISN’T THE TIME FOR PUNS!”

Every single time we turned around she was on her phone, sneaking a look at social media or laughing at a new filter or sharing a new dance move. Each time we left her alone, she was racing upstairs to start a video chat or a live stream or a group convo. Despite pleas to “not spend all afternoon looking at a screen”, she often did, unless we pried the phone from her cold — it is winter in Canada after all — quite alive hands. If the room got a little too quiet, there was no wondering what she was up to.

We wanted to so badly reel her or, if not her, something — like salmon or maybe some snapper or a nice piece of cod — in, but, on the other hand, she’d never seemed happier or more socially connected.

“Don’t you want me to have friends?” she’d ask, knowing that we did. I wanted her to have the active social life that I could live vicariously through. But we were also so aware of where this could go — I had firsthand experience (probably closer to between third and seventh hand, if I’m aiming for accuracy) with students whose phone addiction led to school failure and social anxiety. I knew girls who got into some really mature situations via their phones from constant requests for nudes to offers to buy drugs or go vape or even propositions for sex (“are you dtf?” one 14 year-old girl received at lunch, one day while sitting in my counselling office from a person she barely knew).

I knew countless parents who were tired of the fighting with their kids for control and had just let the rules go. I also knew parents who confiscated and grounded and discontinued phone plans. I also knew one set of parents who identified as human equivalents of grilled cheese sandwiches, but that isn’t important right now. Maybe we were naive or maybe we just played up the naivety for effect, but we believe we could find the fine line between the two extremes. It is a very fine line we agreed, before drawing an even finer line after investing in some top-notch pencils.

After a brief brainstorming session on what to draw after we got bored of drawing straight lines, we continued to talk about Charlotte and her phone. On one hand we wanted her to have fun and be happy, while on the other hand we wanted her to be responsible. If she was able to have three hands, the options would be so exciting. After a short break for refreshments and toast points,

I spoke eloquently about wanting to live in a world where not only was appropriate use of technology possible, but also where men of 48 with glasses and a thinning hairline were considered attractive and offered book deals based solely on short, funny, mostly-unread blog posts.

It’s so different, I reminded my wife, after reminding myself in the mirror first, for kids these days. When we were kids, back in the old days, we spent all night talking on the house phones until our ears were sore and red. Some of us just had sore and red ears to start with and it would nice if you wouldn’t stare.

These days very few kids actually talk on the phone with each other and with busy after school lives, there isn’t always time to hang out in person. Socializing and a significant amount of interaction for teens often takes the form of commenting on posts, creating memes, and what is “hip” and “now” and “fresh” (I’m fully aware that none of those words are actually hip or now or fresh) while being online with friends.

And we heard our daughter loud and clear thanks to her proficiency in vocal cord usage and the thinness of our walls that she just wanted to “be a regular kid” and that she was “doing well in school” and was also confused about the need for air quotes, but that was excusable as she is only 13 and was upset at the time. But, as much as I wanted to deny it, she was right. Things could be a whole lot worse. She was loving school, seemed really happy and, despite wanting more and more and more phone time each day and trying hard to push the time when she plugged in her phone at night (thus ending her conversations for the evening) later and later and later, she also understood our concerns.

She spoke to us about grade 8 friends who were up, online, till 3 am and who are already falling behind in school. She spoke to us about the pull towards the phone and the almost overwhelming desire to be on it all the time, but that she wanted to have limits. She has actually asked for us to take her phone away, at times, so she could focus on homework. Not that we don’t have phone use-related arguments from time to time — nearly everyday, to be exact — but I sense that she wants to do the right thing and learn to moderate herself.

There is no going back — she has a phone and is on the cusp of 14. It will interesting to see what the future holds. She no longer is the only kid without a phone, but I believe — I really want to — that it will all work out.
['Tommy Paley']
['Technology', 'Nonfiction', 'Humor', 'Creative Non Fiction', 'Parenting']