I just bought (reluctantly) a cell phone for my 13-year-old. She was thrilled to get it, but actually hardly uses it, because she doesn't need to.

The truth is, I know where she is and who she's with already--and I wouldn't accept her phoning that information in to me, even at 13. She can't use it in class, obviously, so the most use she gets out of it is as a second line when I or her older sister are hogging the home phone, or to call me on her walk home from school just to say hi. (But she's got to dial fast, it's only a three-block walk.)

Under what circumstances would an eight-year-old need to call a parent on a cell phone? "Hey mom, I'm at the bus station and it's raining and there aren't any cabs in sight, can you come get me?"

There's a point where technology just gets in the way of actual, effective parenting and either leads to paranoia or neglect, and second graders with cell phones seems to me to be that point. Feh.

Carol, I suggest you buy your "chubby" 7-year old a phone now. That way, when she becomes the "hootchie mama" (simply because she may be overweight) that you wrote about last week you'll at least know where to find her before she makes you a grandmother.

Get it? 12 year olds actually do do things not with their parents, out of the house. My 12 year old would call me from religious school asking me to pick him up. Is that a crime?

Is it possible that you could entertain a scenario in which a 10 year old actually needs a cell phone? My daughter's mother and I are divorced and she lives in two households. She is very active in athletics and other after school activities. It is much easier in this situation for everyone involved that my 10 year old be able to call us directly or for her parents to reach her directly. I feel much better when I drop her off at summer camp in the morning knowing that if I or her mother or her aunt is late in picking her up, she can call me or whoever and find out what the hold up is. Or how about this? One of the parents has a medical condition which necessitates calling 911 from time to time? [This is in fact my situation also.] It would have been easier for the EMT crew and the police to get a hold of me to come pick up my daughter at the hospital had she had a cell phone those times. Trust me, my 10 year old doesn't have a cell phone because of class envy or status. In fact, I have to constantly remind her to take it with her whenever she goes from house to house. Oh, and one other thing. Since her friends at school found out, she (and her parents) are subjected to ridicule because "what 10 year old needs a cell phone"? So you can take your smug superiority and stick it up your ass.

I'm all for fighting against an Orwellian system of monitoring (whether state-run or private), but you have to keep it together and not get spooked by every press release out there. Verichip, for example, is not an "implantable GPS tracking device". It is a tiny (size of a grain of rice) implantable capsule containing an RFID chip. These chips are of concern as they are appearing almost everywhere - SpeedPass, swipable AmEx cards, SmartCards on the Metro, new passports - but they are wholly unrelated to GPS and cannot easily be used to track anyone. They are unpowered, but send out a signal in response to a signal from a sensor. The sensor can then report the presence of the chip and relay the data contained on it. In order to track people, you would need sensors literally everywhere as they often have a range of inches. The only advantage to having one put in your kid would be to speed identification if s/he were unable to identify him/herself (e.g., if s/he were an infant, severely injured, or dead).

As for the concern about GPS tracking of kids, Firefly does not include GPS (according to the Firefly website). GPS tracking is not new - see the Wherify bracelet for kids from 2002. I understand the concern, but I think we can all just take a deep breath and focus before we jump in to the issue.

These days, I'm more able to discuss this topic based on our grandkids since the technology was not available when our kids were in their pubescent years. I had a discussion with a co-worker not long ago about this topic.

Whether it's "I need a ride from soccer practice", "the car broke down", "I'm home from the party", "I'm at so-and-so's house", parent-to-child "I'm working late" or whatever, I think that easy, often immediate 2-way communication is invaluable in today's families. Of course, I would impose minute usage restrictions (this is NOT for gossiping at length with your friends)and establish other guidance for its use (e.g., NOT calling to ask if we had frozen pizza rolls in the back freezer).

I am aware of restrictions that schools are placing on kids' cell phones, but I believe that an appropriate restriction should be "turn it off" with consistent punishment for not following the rules. I don't agree with outright confiscation.

And in the very-rare-chance of school shootings or another 9/11, instant communication would be invaluable.

No wonder your kid needs a cell phone. She probably needs it to call mommy when daddy gets "too mad."

Cell phones can mean freedom for parents.

It used to be that Mom was home, by the old black house phone with the curly cord, all day. That's not true any longer, and most of us wouldn't want it to be, yet we do want to be available for our children. If my kids and I have cell phones, they can instantly reach me, wherever I am, and vice versa. It doesn't replace good parenting, but it does replace a lot of wasted time spent waiting for the sports bus to pull into the school parking lot, etc. Now they can all from the edge of town. And if my children were ever, ever in situations that made them uncomfortable, they could reach me any time, anywhere.