Romanticizing years ago
This morning as I was waiting in the lane to turn left into work, there was a family of 3 standing in the median, waiting for the light to cross the street. There was a mom and two daughters. One of the girls was probably 6, and the other, I'm guessing around 11. Although I could not hear their conversation, I could tell that the mom asked the 11 year old, "What time is it?" The girl reached in her pocket, pulled out her cell phone, and read the time to her mother.
My mind started racing. At what age now do kids get their own cell phone? I did not have one until my senior year of college (late 2001). I suppose with the emergence of family plans, it is now the norm for kids to have cell phones. When I was that age, the cool thing to have was your own phone line - a number that your friends could call and reach you directly without having to *gasp* speak to an adult or sibling. In high school, the thing was a to have a pager or beeper (I suppose these are now obsolete in the age of Blackberry's). However, not all the kids at my school had their own phone line or pager. They were still considered luxuries. For the most part, it was still the kids from upper middle class families (or the kids that were drug dealers) that had beepers. At my school, if you were caught with one, it got taken away and you probably received a break detention. I could probably go through my yearbook and tell you who the kids with the pagers were. It was one of those things, if you had one, you definitely let everyone know that you had it.
As I was sitting at the light, I thought about my 8th graders at Church. Yep, they all have cell phones. Maybe it's the city that I live in (the city that I swear keeps the Blackberry company in business...EVERYONE has one) or maybe it is this way around the country. It's a moot point. All I know is that back in the day if you wanted to get in touch with me telephonically, you had one number to try, the only phone number for our household. If I wasn't there, to bad. You waited until I got home.
posted by Karyn @ 8:05 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I agree. When I worked at Mercer, they gave my boss one, and that went off constantly....I mean, CONSTANTLY. I would have chucked it in the river by now.
Also, here in Louisville/Indiana/whatever, I have noticed a good deal of pre-teens sporting cell phones. Apparently, the life of an eighth grader needs more communication and time management outlets than when I was 13.
i went to a country private high school with rich white kids, and for the most part noone had either cell phones or pagers. pagers were joked about being for drug dealers. i had an emergency car cell phone my senior year in high school, but it was like a dollar a minute or something, so i would have been killed for talking on it, other than if i ran out of gas or something.
Wow, I didn't get a cell phone until senior year of college too (late 2001). I think 9/11 was the major turning point of the cell phone phenomenon in America.
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