https://humanparts.medium.com/on-fear-love-and-deciding-whether-my-kid-needs-a-cellphone-bd5903ea89f9

Meg ConleyBlockedUnblockFollowFollowingMay 21Photo: Keiko Iwabuchi/Moment/Getty ImagesMy kids desperately wanted cellphones. My husband and I had decided to wait until they were in the ninth grade, a policy that was especially aggravating to my older daughter. She’s starting fifth grade soon, which means she’s old enough to know she is too young for most things and young enough to be uncertain about what “old enough” means. She seems to view a phone as the key to bridging this gap. I think she just wants to hold it when she doesn’t know what else to do with her hands.

The thing about cellphones and kids is… well, we’ve seen the thing about cellphones and kids. We’re all too familiar with the stories of cyberbullying, and children sexting children, and adults sexting children. We’ve scrolled through articles about the compression of young minds as the price paid for wallet-expansion in Silicon Valley. It’s become one of the biggest parenting questions: Do you allow your child to have a phone, with everything that’s going on right now? The fear is real, and I’ve bought right into it. How could I give my daughters cellphones when their small hands should be full of books, bike handles, and dirt? Now is not the time for YouTube and follower counts.