Talking to another parent yesterday and it seems we are among the last two holdouts giving our kids their own devices.

They have devices they can use but they aren't "theirs".

Some have smart phones already (age range 9-11). Many have smart watches.

When I voiced privacy concerns to other parents, I was made to feel like the bad guy for failing to protect my kids. They are the good parents for giving their kids the ability to call for help in case something happens on the way home. I live in the city and I'm pretty much at the furthest corner of our dense district at a whopping 800m from the school.

There's also the old Chinese saying, two actually I'd like to share. "Far away water can't save a near fire", and "close neighbours are better than far away relatives".

So my kids have an emergency on the walk home. What kind of community would I have to live in to feel like they can't scream for help or walk into the corner store for help?

This is all part of the erosion of society. Don't depend on your community. Give a subscription to tech bros to keep your children safe.

Friends, this is f'd. I should not need to depend on tech to guard my kids against a mythical threat when I should have neighbors and friends all around who contribute to the well being of all of us.

If your solution to safety is tech and not community building, your priorities are f'd and you're letting the tech bros eat what's left of your brain.

I hate when I'm made to feel like a bad parent for not caring about my children's safety.

Tech is not the path to child safety.

@chu My grandkids are 8 and 10. Their parents plus all of us grandparents are resisting phones with everything we’ve got.

We will lose the battle at some point because the 10 year old is active in dance and theatre. She’s going to need to coordinate rides and such. But we will wait just as long as possible.

@MiriShuli @chu
My grandkids got their phones quite young, and I'm fine with that because they go to dance 5 days/week and frequently need things sorted during the day when their mom is often travelling for work. I love getting text messages from them, and I see them using their devices very wisely. It seems like your kids are in a very different situation, with a bunch of at-home parents on the block. Parenting requires choices based on a family's situation.

@EllenInEdmonton @MiriShuli

It does. And we live in a society and at some point we just need to function.

A friend just came back from China and she said she couldn't even function without a cell phone. Not just a phone but a local one that is tied to bank accounts and ID and everything.

Panopticon but also seemlessly convenient. Soon the kids will need a phone to even buy candy from the corner store.