Remember all of the things that your parents made you wait until you were older to do? I do!
Having my own phone in my room: 8
Staying up until 9 pm: 10
Having my own TV in my room: 12 (secretly the curfew went out the window with that installation)
Staying up until 10pm: about 14
Shaving my legs: 10 (I started that one without permission.)
Dating: 16
Cell Phone: 16 (funny enough, my 14 year old brother Adam got one at the same time I did)
Driving our Jet ski: 14 (Little brother, Adam got to learn that one at the same time I did as well. That means there was a 12 year old driving a jet-ski, not the best choice ever I am sure)
Pulling our jet-ski and putting it in the water: Apparently I'm still not old enough for that one.
The list could go on and on including the things I couldn't wait to do and then suddenly realized that I should have never learned them at all, like cutting the grass. Big mistake to learn that one, our yard is huge!
I was thinking about all of these, and started to wonder if someday I will be trying to decide at what age I should let my kids join facebook. I can just imagine sitting on the bleachers watching my kid's football practice discussing with fellow parents if our kids are old enough and mature enough to start their own facebook page, and what do we think is the appropriate age for them to start one. I can also imagine fighting with my daughter as she tells me through her tears that both Cindy and Emma have one, and it's not fair because she feels so out of the loop.
What do you think? Will this become a wait-till-you're-older parent child battle? Has it already? To what age should we make our kids wait?
Yeah, I'm sure this will be an issue. But with technology becoming cheaper and smaller (e.g. Nintendo DS now having internet and a facebook app), I think it will be almost impossible for parents to enforce a no-facebook policy.
ReplyDeleteThe more intriguing question, to me, is whether there will be any kids named "Cindy" in the next 15 years.