LAND-LOCKED

Posted February 18th, 2012 | Permalink

It’s been eight years since I’ve owned a cell phone. Yes, that’s right; I have not had a cell phone for the last eight years.

My kids don’t have phones.

My husband has the simplest cell phone on the market; bare bones, pay-as-you-go. He only has it because he does a lot of free-lance design work and having a “work number” is important. It isn’t used for anything else. It’s always at home.

We don’t live in a commune. We don’t milk our own cow and we have running water. Cell phones are the only technology we don’t have. We’re completely hip with the IPods, the laptops, the suped-up dvr and all that. Our kids text their friends, Skype and FB all they want. We have three computers in the house, plus a laptop, for a family of four. I feel the need to defend.

We’re just land-lined.

The main reason we don’t have phones is the cost. Beyond that, there are oodles of reasons. My soapbox is getting a new coat of paint, so I won’t prattle on about the ways cell phones annoy me. Instead, I’m focusing today on the secondary reason my KIDS don’t have phones (secondary only to cost, mind you): PROBLEM SOLVING.

In the past few months, I’ve witnessed the following uses of cell phones by teenagers:

A group of friends are hanging out at the park and don’t know what to do with themselves. They call their parents on their phones to ask, “We’re bored. What should we do?”
Three teens are sitting on the couch, having a heated debate about a particular professional sports team record. There are several computers in the house, and newspapers. They use a cell phone to call a friend to ask him to solve the debate. The kid on the other end of the phone looks up the answer on his computer and reports his findings into the phone.
Two teens are walking home from school and it begins to sprinkle. They are 3 blocks from home. They use their phone to call their working parents for a ride.
Three college juniors are on a road trip. They’re on their way to an airport to pick up a fourth friend. They’re stuck in heavy traffic and wonder if there’s an alternate route they can take. The teens put their heads together and decide to use one of their cell phones to call a parent at work, ask the parent to find their location on MapQuest, and then find and explain an alternate route to the airport.
A group of teens are planning for a trip they’d like to take together. They are in a meeting with an adult mentor and have been asked to brainstorm some good ideas for fundraisers. One teen pipes up excitedly and says, holding her phone in the air, “I can call my aunt! She has great ideas and she’s just driving in her car right now! She’s not doing anything!”

Are you following me here?

Are you thinking to yourself, “What would I have done in those situations when I was a kid?” What would you have done? You didn’t have a cell phone.

I’ll tell you what you would have done. You would have stopped, thought hard, solved the problem, moved on. The solution might have required that you get up and seek information, or it might have required a map (or the GPS on your phone), or perhaps it would require you to be creative and inventive. Perhaps it would even have required a small towel to dry your hair. Shudder.

I want my kids to be able to solve problems on their own. I want them to be independent and confident. I want them to be comfortable making decisions.

Now, think about this. You stop in the grocery store on your way home from work to pick up ingredients for cupcakes for your son’s 2^nd grade class party tomorrow. “Vanilla, chocolate or strawberry with sprinkles?” you ask yourself as you stand in front of the shelves.

Do you have to call him to ask? Or can you make that decision on your own? Sorry, just asking.