My 7th Grader Doesn’t Have A Phone, And She Doesn’t Hate Me For It
My 12-year-old daughter is like everyone else’s 12-year-old daughter: awash on a hormonal sea, her moods rising and falling like breakers in a storm. My tween has thrown her arms up over songs I’ve played in the car, huffed over homemade dinners that didn’t suit her tastes, and even stomped to her room over embarrassing outfits (not hers — mine). But one thing she isn’t mad about? Being one of only a few kids in the seventh grade without a cellphone.
An erstwhile English teacher, I’ve prioritized a low-tech childhood for my kids — their two primary leisure options for the past decade being to go outside or read a physical book. I’m no dummy; I’ve long suspected these options would become less and less cool as the years wore on. Ever since my oldest was born, I’ve braced for the smartphone arguments that were sure to come.
Trends show most parents ultimately decide that holding off on a phone isn’t worth the expected conflict. I’ve come to believe parents don’t have to choose between giving their middle schooler an iPhone and maintaining a close relationship. All those arguments I braced for? They haven’t happened.
I started talking to my kids about phones back when all four of them still piled into my bed on Saturday mornings. I told them early they’d be among the last of their friends to get a phone, always explaining the values behind that choice. Instead of griping about the negatives of cellphone addiction, I’ve focused on the positives of engaging the world around them. We talk about the importance of paying attention and staying alive in a world that wants to digitize everything, even our feelings. I encourage analog living: The kids are used to making enormous messes with art supplies and sofa pillows, and we play everything from Monopoly Deal to badminton. I’ve never wanted my kids to feel like they were missing out on the digital world. Instead, I’ve wanted them to understand that spending time in the digital world could mean missing out on real life.
Since my daughter has always known she would be among the last of her friends to get a cellphone, there was never a shock factor, and she’s had her explanations for friends prepared. Which brings me to another reason I think this is working: my willingness to take the fall. I have no problem being the bad guy; I’ve even given her the language to explain how she’d love to have a phone or iPad, but her mom is so weird about that stuff. At 12, the sneers of other girls seem life-ending. At 40, I can handle their derision.
Of course, all of this would translate as hypocrisy if I didn’t have a healthy relationship to my own smartphone. I kicked Instagram a couple of years ago, and my husband and I rarely have our phones out when our kids are around. My daughter has seen me take tech sabbaticals, and I explain to her in real time what makes it hard to be constantly connected. (“See how many texts I’ve gotten just since we’ve been sitting here? And they all want me to do something!”) At the same time, I show her the research. I once paid her $10 to read a study about self-esteem in tweens who use social media. She may think I’m crazy, but she at least knows I have the backing of experts.
I remember trying to stay alive in the cutthroat arena of the middle school cafeteria, and I keep that empathy close to the surface. I often assure my daughter that I see how it could be hard for her not to have a phone in certain situations, and these regular acknowledgments help stave off her complaints. We talk a lot about how living a meaningful life may require making different choices than the kids around her, but that hard things are worth it. By waiting a little longer than her friends, she’s been able to watch them disappear into their phones, something that seems less appealing when you can feel its effects as an outsider.
I do have to give on other issues. Parents can be fanatical about only a couple of things — clean nutrition, maybe, or excellence in sports. I choose to put my energy toward reducing screen time, and I surrender some of the other stuff. Do I love that she and her friends pass around candy like, well, candy? Do I love that they all “need” a newly trendy water bottle every six months? I do not. But by giving in where I can, I show her that the phone issue is not a lack of trust or a desire to ruin her social standing.
My husband and I originally told our kids they could have smartphones when they got to high school. My hope is to preserve a free-range, imaginative childhood — but also to give my kids phones early enough to educate them on safe usage while they’re still living under our roof. Within those goals, though, there’s plenty of wiggle room, and my daughter has made a decent case for a phone in eighth grade. She knows I’m open to changing my mind, and that, whatever we decide, her reasons matter to us. After all, there’s no mom trophy for holding out, and kids tend to revolt when they catch the scent of implacability.
I believe a phone-free childhood is a gift my daughter can draw on for the rest of her life, and I’m careful to frame our choice as a gift rather than a punishment. Her understanding is developmentally limited by short-term thinking, but she is at least convinced that I believe what I’m saying. One day — when she’s chained to her screens like the rest of us adults, her phone buzzing nonstop in her pocket — her independent childhood is something no one will be able to take from her.
