Does Your Toddler Need a Mobile Phone?

Here’s how a typical phone conversation between one of my youngest nephews and I goes:

Me: Hi! It’s Aunt Lindsay.

Him: Hi. (Long silence.)

Me: What are you doing right now?

Him: (Long silence. Heavy breathing. Crunching noises.)

Me: Are you eating something? Are you playing?

Him: Hi. (More silence followed by more heavy breathing.)

Me: Are you still there? Can you put your mum back on the phone? Where’s your mum?

Him: (Loud crash as the phone hits the floor. Pattering of little feet as he runs off to play.)

Me: (Calling out to my sister-in-law) Kristen? Kristen? Are you there?

Once I needed to tell my sister-in-law something really important and she put him on to say hi to me first. He dropped the phone, she forgot all about me and I ended up spending the next two hours calling back and getting a busy signal because the phone was, no doubt, still lying in the same position on the floor.  

So I was truly bewildered today when I was reading the Daily Buzz and came across a posting called New Toddler Cell Phone. The phone features large, brightly colored buttons and is capable of holding 200 pre-programmed numbers (this just made me feel bad about myself as I don’t think I have that many numbers in my phone).

I feel like toddlers show little interest in having real phone conversations. They are probably just as happy, nay happier, talking on those toy phones that call their favourite Sesame Street characters, as they would be gabbing with their real-life friends, but maybe I am wrong. If you’d like to weight in on this topic, visit CaféMom and take their poll.

No matter what your opinion, I think we should all prepare ourselves for a new generation of toddlers, riding around in strollers and whipping out candy-colored Blackberrys to schedule their own play dates.

(Image from pro.corbis.com)