It’s (almost) time for a phone

Here we go.

“Maybe ye don’t know it, Mr. Herriot, but this is the best time of your life.”

“Do you think so?”

“Aye, there’s no doubt about it. When your children are young and growin’ up around ye — that’s when it’s best. It’s the same for everybody, only a lot o’ folk don’t know it and a lot find out when it’s too late. It doesn’t last long, you know.”

— James Herriot, The Lord God Made Them All

It’s a cliché, of course, but it’s true: you always look at your children the way they were when they were little — like the photo above, in which my now almost-13-year-old son was still just five, and I took him fishing at a pond near our house.

That’s why it wasn’t all that surprising when he asked me earlier this week, “Dad, is it hard for you seeing me as grown up now?”

(Of course, he’s not grown up all the way yet, but in his mind he might as well be.)

“Yeah, it is,” I replied. “But I’m starting to make my peace with it.” Because at a certain point, your only real choice is to accept it, you know?

Then he said something I didn’t expect: “Well, I hope you haven’t made too much peace with it.”

What I think he meant was, while he’s ready for the power-ups that come with growing up — and a phone is right at the top of that list, which I’ll get to in just a sec — he still likes being a kid, he’s not ready for all that comes with being a teenager just yet.

He’s seen quite a few episodes of Seinfeld with me. But this summer, we also went to see — his choice — the new live-action Moana, The Mandalorian and Grogu, and Toy Story 5, among others.

(We also saw and really liked Spider Man: Brand New Day, though I could’ve done with a little less swearing; but hey, that’s just me.)

So, he still has one foot in kid-dom, even though every day he gets closer to becoming an adolescent. It happens little by little; you notice a different tone in their voice, a little more assertiveness in their step.

You ask yourself, “what was that I heard?” (Though you know exactly what it was, because it’s the same way you acted when you were that age.)

A friend of mine once likened raising kids to someone giving you a glass of sweet tea. It’s perfect, and for the longest time, you can’t imagine it being different. Over time, though, you start to notice hints of something else; did someone pour unsweet tea in here by mistake?

Year by year, there’s a little more in there, then a little more. And then one day, the sweetness is all gone. This is okay, my friend told me; it’s just a phase, and it’s one you’ll learn to roll with — and, fingers crossed, will open the door to a new kind of relationship.

It doesn’t mean, though, that you won’t feel nostalgia for the old one. And the old one has been pretty great this past year, as little T and I have spent much of it outside in our backyard: playing football, basketball and now baseball/Wiffle ball as each season has changed.

We’ve played almost daily, and there haven’t been any alerts pinging and buzzing a device in his pocket all that time, because there hasn’t been a device there to buzz.

In the not too distant future, though — very likely this fall — there will be. With him, we’re fast approaching the age when basically every kid has a phone; most of his friends have one now, and the few that don’t will very soon.

As you might imagine, I’m torn. There’s a part of me that would like to throw my own phone in the ocean, as I know I’ve struggled with using it too much at times. (Maybe a little more than “at times” if I’m being honest.)

But I’m also persuaded by the argument that we need to prepare kids for how to interact with the digital world, not pretend it doesn’t exist. So, we take all the advice we’ve heard and seen, and we try to figure out a path that’s best for us.

And meanwhile, we try to hold on to the “sweet tea” days as much as we can. It’s hard not because I think my son is, on the day we get him a phone, suddenly become a different person. Not at all.

Rather, it’s because I know he’ll be taking his first big step into the whole teenager thing. It’ll unfold slowly, I know, but maybe neither one of us is quite ready for all the changes that will surely come.

But come they will, right? If you have any advice for this phase — or really anything! — I’d love to hear it. As always, keep in touch and let me know how your running/life is going.

Your friend,

— Terrell