Can We Talk?

Can we talk? Really? Now that my son's almost through his first year at H.B. Thompson Middle School, I've noticed a communication breakdown. Back in June when Robert graduated from elementary school, all the kids got cell phones as a gift. Not my son, mind you. We said, "When you can pay the bill, you can have a phone." Now, it seems practically every junior high kid in Syosset has a cell phone.

"Well, in an emergency he/she needs to reach me!" parents cry.

It seems nowadays 11-year-olds have major communication needs that require iPhones and BlackBerries or e-mails and Facebook accounts.

Once Robert's friend J. came for a sleepover with a laptop and cell phone poised and ready. You would've thought J. was going to a boardroom meeting the way he was plugged in and booted up.

There was too much giggling going on in the basement, where they camped out. I stuck around and listened to the boys "visually" talking to girls across town on Skype. Innocent enough, but then I cut them off after a half hour when I heard J. asked about "her formation." Okay, time's up!

Look, I tweet.  I'm on Facebook.  I know my way around the Internet.  I'm no communication prude, but…

Is it that we are a town of affluent adults giving our kids the coolest, fully loaded stuff? Am I just jealous that I can't keep up with the Joneses for my kid or better yet, I myself don't have the latest technology at 44? I have a TracFone with units and that's in case my brand-new Honda Odyssey should somehow break down (better not) or I run out of gas (like that's going to happen real soon since it was only once in my life at 16, stupid and he was cute—ahem—the guy who helped push the Chevy to a gas station.)

I miss conversations with real persons who aren't rudely distracted by texting, tweeting, buzzing or sending smoke signals to other people out of view while I'm standing there waiting—like I'd left and gone fishing.

At a friend's recent birthday celebration, adults were clicking away checking voicemail, swiping iTouches, heads bowed focusing on an inanimate object, while living, breathing folks sat right next to them.  They never even said a word to relatives—for four hours.

Respect? Forget it. It's obsession. One night, an hour into homework with our second- and fourth-grade daughters, our landline phone (yes, we still have one of those) would not stop ringing. Whoever it was didn't leave a message. The person hung up and rang again two minutes later. Hung up. Rang again. I try not to disturb homework time and would not answer a number I didn't recognize. But after the eighth repeated call, I did answer, thinking it HAD to be an emergency of some sort, or why would this person so brashly call over and over?

"Lee, we are quite aware that you've been calling. We're busy and Robert is not home. Next time leave a message and he'll get back to you." Not only was the boy really annoyed that no one answered his call while we were sitting there, but he was ticked off that Robert wasn't home and not at Lee's beck and call.

"Where's Robert? Where did he go? What's his cell number? Can I meet him there? When will he be back?"

All this communication gadgetry is causing obsessive-compulsive behaviors, giving people control over another's whereabouts that astonishes me. More frightening is puberty—especially for girls. One of Robert's friends asked 20 different girls "out" just to have their phone number so he can text-message them in the middle of the night. "WARE R U?" Worse, he tries outlandish stuff for shock value–sending photos of dirty socks–which can only lead to, you know: "her formation."  

I'm sorry, but 11-year-olds are socially inept and are not able to process simple concepts of hello and goodbye, let alone how to regulate the amount of calls.

When we were kids, jeez, we rang the doorbell and shyly asked for whomever to play. Now, kids seem to feel if they have a cell phone number, they have inalienable rights to other kids' souls because they've cut the out the middleman—parents. We've lost control and have no idea what they're doing.

You might as well give them keys to drive a car. They know as much about responsible driving as they do about boundaries and social etiquette—and it IS that dangerous. The false power they wield seems to give them a license to disregard parental authority in anyone's house.

They have all the coolest tools to communicate, but have no clue what they are doing. The compulsive repetition of instant access hypnotizes kids into a false autonomy over others that, to me, is harassment.

Gone fishing.  Leave us a message and we'll get back to you!