It’s becoming harder to recall what life was like before we were all in constant contact by cell phone.
A dozen or so years ago, when mobile phones were the size of paperback books and used as ostentatiously as possible, I happened to dine at a restaurant in southern China.
At the next table, four businessmen were talking loudly and importantly on massive hand-held devices, while their one phone-free tablemate sat in uncool silence.
My translator leaned over and said with a chuckle that it was all for show — the men had rung up each other just to show off their groovy technology and embarrass their friend.
Today, of course, every 9-year-old seems to have the use of a cell phone. It’s probably a good thing, too, because what with the price of gas America’s cosseted youngsters are suddenly getting a taste of hardscrabble independence. At least that’s how it looks from where we live, in comfy suburbia.
Until recently, all children were at all times driven to all locations by their harried but indulgent parents. Quite suddenly, one sees children riding bicycles unescorted, not for fun but for transportation.
Overnight, one sees children kicking along the roadside — children who a couple of months ago could have expected a friendly lift in air-conditioned comfort.
This surely fits under the heading “Upside of the Downslide,” because though slipping into what feels like a recession is hardly pleasant, it is also true that American childhood had become far too guarded and altogether too sedentary.
If high gas prices force children to become more self-sufficient in getting themselves around, well, that’s a vapor-thin silver lining.
Yet modern parents can be only so lax. We may start sending our children off unaccompanied, but it’s become almost unthinkable to push them into the world without a phone.
When you have summertime houseguests, as we do this week, and they, too, have children, there’s inevitably half an hour of dithering while phones are assigned.
“Wait, do you have a phone?” someone asks. “Well, I’ve got your phone,” someone else returns. Then comes a little chorus of “Which phone?” or “Where is my phone, anyway?” or “But then I don’t have a phone” or “The baby was playing with the phone,” and invariably some phones are dead or recharging or seriously lost.
Then there’s a lot of ringing around, like Chinese businessmen showing off, to discover where the missing devices might be. Perhaps one goes off in someone’s (ahem) handbag, at which point everyone laughs.
And off we go to separate and, in the case of the children, amusingly sex-stereotypical entertainments. Today, for instance, the teenage girls are bound for the shopping mall, while the preteen boys are going “hunting” in the peaceful Maryland woods. And in no time, it seems, the children start calling in.
Ring! “I just wanted to ask, do you think I should buy a black eyeliner that costs $10?”
Ring! “What? I didn’t call you. Must have hit speed dial by mistake.”
Ring! “… So do you have her cell phone number? She went to Aeropostale and I’m at Hollister, and it’s been, like, 10 minutes.”
Ring! “Were you serious when you said we could barbecue anything we catch? Aw, c’mon! Why not?”
It’s nice to be in touch with the children, but this is getting ridiculous.
Ring! “It turns out the movie we wanted to see isn’t even playing here, so we were thinking we might try to go see it tomorrow. …”
Ring! “Mummy? The creek … [indecipherable] … but there’s still a lot of blood.”
“Blood?” I bawl into the receiver. “How much? Where are you? And, wait — whose blood?”
“Mine,” he says. “Ankle.”
“Is it gushing?”
There’s a pause as our son consults the visiting boy who mercifully is not bleeding. Yes, it’s a gusher. “OK, put pressure on it and make for the edge of the woods,” I tell him.
Silently thanking the previously irritating cell phone and all who gave their careers to put inexpensive ones into the pockets of American children, I dash for the car.
The other mother comes with me, stuffing a wad of gauze into her pocket, in case. As we’re driving, her phone goes off. “No,” she says, “you already have pink flip-flops.”
By now we’ve reached the boys, who are sitting by the road in a heap of filthy, soaked exultation. My boy waves his cell phone in greeting and tentatively removes the T-shirt tourniquet from his injured leg. There is a … tiny cut.
“Weird,” he says, puzzled. “It was bleeding way more before.”
