This article is about parents who try to give their children the best, and teenagers who don't understand their parents. Mutual misunderstanding is as old as Methuselah, law of life. But now the big problem, of course, is the mobile phone.
Suddenly, social awareness has exploded about the addictive power of screens, something we could have sensed long before, when Steve Jobs denied the iPhone to his teens. We have received a collective tremor that is sent via WhatsApp or Telegram and, eureka!, we have found the magical solution.
Prohibit mobile phones before 16.
A bit like what happened with tobacco, only in the case of the telephone there are two powerful barriers: the resistance of indomitable technologies and the unstoppable advance of digital society.
That cell phone as bad as heroin is the same one that is omnipresent in our lives. We let Zuckerberg into the kitchen, and he stole the cookie jar. That cell phone is the same one we gave the kid for his birthday to know, how delusional, where he is at every moment (and not to hear him complain). The same cell phone that you, supposed to be an exemplary parent, are on all day.
This is the mobile of a thousand demons.
Let's see who is the champion now who removes the device from the child or convinces him to replace it with a silly cell phone, the kind that are only used to make calls. Oh, it's not the same mobile: not even God wants this one.
Suddenly, society has realized that a child cannot drive a motorcycle with a large displacement without his feet touching the ground and without even knowing the traffic signs. They crash at the bends, and there are a lot of them. If they want, let's change the metaphor of the motorcycle to that of a firearm and yes, our legs will shake...
Being in these massive, shall we say, antimobile groups of parents has a cathartic effect and eases family tensions. Although it hides a claudication, because it allows you to externalize a responsibility that you have abdicated at home. From the evil of many, to the "it's just that if we don't all do it...".
Join this Fuenteovejuna of distressed families. The debate enriches. But then ask yourself how much time you spent this week communicating with your child, not just on WhatsApp. to talk It's enough for a teenager to imagine the rest of them prettier and happier than her for her to think that her existence is bullshit. Don't be the last to find out.
Teenagers are uncomfortable, selfish, unpredictable beings... Also surprising if you listen to them. The bad news is that they have organized their lives and their socializing around the mobile phone. Honestly, I think we're too late to ban, not to try to get to know our children. Make it clear that it's always easier to throw in the towel or take refuge in others.
