Emily The Relentless

[plumtreeblossom]

Yesterday I got a voicemail: it was my neice Emily, age 9, once again harping at me to buy her a cell phone.

There's some backstory to this.

This past Christmas at my mom's, Emily caught me at a moment when the whole family was wine-drunk and buoyant with good cheer (for once). She's a slick kid, and she recognized the perfect opportunity to beg me to buy her a cell phone. Without giving it one millisecond's thought, I festively blurted "You bet, sweetie!" If only I'd known what I'd just done.

It came back to bite me in the butt a few weeks later.

*ring*ring*
"Hello?"
"Where's my cell phone?"
"Emily?"
"Where's my cell phone?!"
"Well, uh, we'll have to look into that..."

What hadn't been discussed was a calling plan, which I definitely didn't promise. After consulting my brother Jim, he told me not to buy her a phone no matter what I might have said, because he can't even afford a mobile calling plan for himself, let alone for a 4th grade child. I can't afford it either, only the phone unit. I was happy to obey him, and we both told Emily that the phone thing wasn't going to happen for a few more years.

Try telling that to Emily.

Since then, she and I have barely had a conversation that wasn't about the phone. I'll say "How's school?" and she'll say "It would be better if I had a cell phone." Her voicemail yesterday sounded downright rehearsed, like a 9-year-olds version of a spoken PowerPoint presentation outlining why I must buy her a cell phone.

She's severely working my nerves. It's hard because I'm a rather unique female role model in her life. I'm the only adult relative she's ever had who is cool, and to her I'm glamorous, the city aunt who does shiny things like riding in subways and eating in restaurants with real metal cutlery. I don't have any other nieces or nephews, so I do shower her with what I can afford. I buy her Godiva Chocolate and high heels. But there's a limit to what Auntie Fabulous can afford. Plus, I've been (wisely) forbidden by my brother to buy her a phone.

I have very little communication experience with children. But this nagging has to stop. Those among you who are parents, or seasoned Aunts and Uncles, help me out?

Comments

[eclecticavatar.livejournal.com]

Get her a Cingular Go Phone and put like $25 on it or something. Then tell her that she'll have to do some chores around the house and get an allowance to put more money on it when what you started her with runs out!

[spatch]

Yeah, this is a great idea and it'll quickly teach her the value of talkin' money.

Also the moral of the story is DON'T TALK TO KIDS WHEN YOU'RE DRUNK.

[sunspiral.livejournal.com]

I agree with the general scheme, but would expand the warning to Don't make commitments of any sort while drunk!

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Well I'll be danged... I completely forgot about pre-pay phones, and I used to have one long ago! I just looked at Cingular's -- they're so cheap I could afford to buy one for Emily and one for my brother. :-)

Great idea about making her earn her own money to put on it after the initial money runs out. My brother won't object to that, I'm sure!

I can't believe I didn't think of this option. Thanks. *clocks self over head*

[ariwriter.livejournal.com]

This might come out of left field, but what about buying one of those disposable cellphones? That way, you don't have to worry about plans. Buy it with the lowest amount of minutes, and tell her that once the minutes expire, your role as Santa Claus ends.

[goat.livejournal.com]

Either go the pay-as-you-go phone plan or put your foot down. Sometimes kids need clearer boundaries than adults, as much as it sucks to say "No, really, I mean it".

Good luck.

[bex77]

Blame it on your brother, 100%. "Your dad won't let me."

[joyeous.livejournal.com]

I think it best to make sure your brother is okay with whatever you do. For example, if he had said "I don't want my daughter wearing high heels" it might not necessarily be because he couldn't afford them, but thought she was too young to wear them, meaning "please don't buy them for her because I won't let her wear them anyway." He may have said the "can't afford it" as one of the reasons, but he may have other reasons too and think it is important to respect someone's rules for their own child. Better to not make an awkward situation with your brother and check first before doing anything. Nothing more frustrating to a parent than a grandparent or other relative who makes them look like the bad guy.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I just called him a while ago, and he said it was fine. She can earn more minutes herself. We decided it would be her back-to-school gift.

I have to say, it's nice to get to be Fairy Godmother, when I can afford it. :-)

[joyeous.livejournal.com]

Ooh. Well, it's a good thing you checked and it turned out well after all.

I had a friend once ask, "you love animals so much, why don't you get a pet?" and I offhandedly remarked, "oh, well they're so expensive. i can't afford it."

I did not get into the explanation of how i really didn't want the responsibility of having a pet, not sure what kind of pet i wanted anyway, not sure if the house could be made "pet-proof," and I would probably wait until i owned a house so that the pet could have more room. These were other reasons that I didn't feel needed to be said, so I just answered the question as simply as possible.

That year, I got a gift certificate for $150 to buy a pet. I felt so bad. It was the nicest gift ever, but something I couldn't use. Thank goodness they didn't buy me the pet itself!

The next year, I offhanded mentioned it would be cool to learn to swing on the flying trapeze. AGAIN, the SAME people bought me a gift certificate for trapeze lessons. I really didn't want to do that, for a variety of reasons, mainly time constraints and being out of shape. It wasn't the money, really, but I guess they didn't understand that.

I've learned now to be explicitly clear WHY I don't want something and when someone says they don't want something, I assume that they don't want it regardless of what they reason they say it is, because there are usually other underlying factors as well.

[joyeous.livejournal.com]

The outcome of this story of course being that nobody will ever buy me anything again. :-)

[cowgrrl.livejournal.com]

I have Virgin Mobile, another pay-as-you go phone, and really like it because I use my cell phone sparingly. In case you want to shop around. They probably have some cheap phones available at their web site.

[http://users.livejournal.com/urban_faerie_/]

you can also get those little firefly phones for kids. they only let the kid dial like 5 pre-programmed numbers like, 'mom, grandma" ect. that would be good.

[earthling177.livejournal.com]

Hm, I dunno. If it was me, I'd tell her totally seriously that it wasn't going to happen until some random time after she stopped bugging you (and maybe everyone in the family) for one and also have a serious talk about how the phone is the cheap part, paying for the calls is not, just so she's clear on it. Unlike you, I wouldn't make it a "back to school" thing because then you would have trained her that bugging people for 6+ months is the way to get things. But that's just me, YMMV.