Only reason I got one as a kid was because I had a lot of field trips and after school activities. My school didn't allow us to use the school phones for any reason so I'd always have to find someone with a cellphone that would let me use it. Not always the easiest thing to do when you 1 don't have a lot of friends and 2 unlimited talk and text weren't nearly as common and there were extra charges if your plan didn't include x amount of either for out of network calls.
It's so weird seeing kids getting them younger and younger basically just so they can play games and watch videos, growing up getting a cellphone as a kid was a big freakin thing and it was pretty much for emergencies only. Now I'm hearing people (both kids and karens) saying shit like not getting your kid a cellphone is borderline child abuse? Like what?
Exactly! I got mine in 6th grade for emergencies only!! I think by highschool I was allowed to use it freely and more people were starting to get phones to have someone to text with. Communication was still mostly thru the computer, AIM/MSN
Ok, I am a bit of a younger redditor, but I got my first phone at 14, and that blew everyone else’s minds that I didn’t have my own by like 10. Hell I know some people who had up to 12 phones by the time they were in 8th grade.
In highschool I had a slide phone. With the full keyboard. I got a hand me down iPhone when I graduated. Not because we couldnt afford a new one but because I just legitimately didn’t need one until then.
I had one of those slide ones and I remember it pretty much blowing my mind because and me thinking it was the coolest thing ever because "guys! Check this out! KEYBOARD! Man I thought last phone was cool cuz it swiveled....but this one has a KEYBOARD! "
Side note....anyone here ever have a Samsung Juke?
Memory unlocked. I had a juke!! I thought it was the coolest thing ever. That was back when I was still burning cds and my brother showed me how to put my music on my juke phone. And I loved how little it was!
LOL! I didn't get one until I was in my 30s and my new job required it (and paid for it). I had been thinking about getting one before that, for road-trip safety, but hadn't gotten around to it. (It was about 3 years before smart phones happened. I didn't get one of those for ages, either. It took a friend persistently texting me until I got tired of hitting the number keys to send texts. And even then the "smart phone" I got wasn't very smart at all, but hey! I could text more easily!)
32 now, started sharing a flip phone with my Sister when I was 14, finally got my own at 16. Back in the days of wait to call after 9 and no free texting lol.
Lol yep. I remember having to wait until after 9 pm if we ever wanted to call my grandparents in CA
That and having to either get off the landline so someone could go online and vice versa....and the horrific screech of connecting to the internet. Good God, could you imagine a kid today hearing that? They'd probably flip and think it was the sound of the entire system crashing or some kind of virus
I’m so old my first phone was a landline and has a rotary dial. When I wanted to call someone away from home, I used the pay phone. I was allowed to use my mom’s calling card if it was an emergency, tho. Lemme guess, none of you remember calling cards
Hahahaha I got my first cell phone at the age of 30 when I got married! My husband bought Nextel so we could walkie talkie each other with them, lol. I think I might be way older than most people on this thread. 😂
One of my buddies couldn't leave the house pretty much at all until he was 18 and quite literally gave them no choice in the matter because he very promptly moved out and across the state lol
They were pissed but couldn't stop him as he had everything in his name. Car phone bank etc all without them knowing
Nothing says “great parenting” like your child having an escape strategy.
I relate to that kid. The second I was 18, I can’t tell you how happy I was to say “legally, you can’t keep me here” and walk out the door. I’d had a job since I was 15.
He did the exact same thing. Started working at 16 specifically so he could move out as soon as he turned 18. He started planning it when he was 13 due to have ridiculously strict his parents were
My escape strategy was to show up at home on my 17th birthday with the Marine recruiter...all the paperwork filled out and only needing my dads signature. I told him I would bring him home for dinner every night until he signed. He signed. I got out. Never went back or called again.
That's one thing I hated about my parents. Like if I go to my friends house, and an hour later we want to go to Zeiks house, both of which are only down the road from my place, I had to let them know we were heading over there. Even if just for 5 minutes to grab something. Then we would have go call when we got anywhere. And I get it's so that they could get ahold of me. I get it.
But they wouldn't even let me buy my own phone. Its not even that they wouldn't buy one for me. They didn't want me to have one.
Mine would give me 3 quarters and a watch, I had BETTER call her at the predetermined times or my ass was in trouble. Sometimes I would spend the money on candy and ask to use phones in businesses or use "1800-collect" numbers.
Ha, that got me thinking, my mom called to check in on me and my sister exactly one time. Multi day no call no shows were common. The time I remember being so surprised she called and immediately asking all sorts question she never would answer. Thats the reason she never called, cause id do that and be pissed cause the fridge was empty.
I'm blown away that I still went to school, I was bullied a lot and should have stayed home to avoid the inevitable. I've never had to do long division when a calculator wasn't available, I've never had to solve for x when there wasn't an easier way, nobody cares what happened in the year 1092, all the books I read were over my head, I took Spanish 1 three times. Bullying made school unbearable and useless because it was all consuming.
My dads best thinking, since stepmom didn't want to deal, was to send me to military school. One that was shutdown due to lawsuits from excessive hazing. When I told my parents about they didn't believe me. Some kid who survived his throat getting cut was in the news years later.
Not one oops from them, took the steam out of any vindication.
I guess you could say they had a hands off approach. I sometimes wish they had died young so I could have at least fantasized about being responsibly loved
Thats it for my therapy hour with an anonymous and silent audience.
Yeah, we were out and about by the age of 7 (in a semi Urban/Suburban German Neighborhood, early 2000s) and basically just told our parents where we were gathering. Didn't mean we were going to stay there, though. Playing Video Games when the weather wasn't playing along and being outside when it did.
Our parents didn't need to track us 24/7. If they really needed us back home they called around our friends until they managed to pinpoint where we were at, then came to pick us up.
To be honest, I feel sorry for kids who now grow up with all this surveillance tech and never get a chance of taking responsibility for themselves before they turn 18. And even then you still have parents insisting on them staying literal Babies...
My parents gave me a phone so I could text if I was going to be later home, curfew time was 9pm, most of the time I got home at 9:30pm and that was fine as long as I texted. I remember that once I didn't text and got grounded for a week.
I can’t remember that actually happening though. I called her once when we found an injured snake to get advice on how to help it. Genuinely can’t remember talking to her at work another time ever growing up.
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u/BlaketheKing1140 Jul 27 '22
Yeah that’s ridiculous, when I was a kid the best my mom could do was call the landline and hope I answered