When Does Your Child Get Their First Phone?

Every answer feels like “too soon.”

I was watching the truly delightful The Mitchells Vs. the Machines on Netflix with my two sons the other evening when one of them, Wynn, the younger one, got aggrieved.

“Why does that kid get a phone and I don’t?”

Wynn was referring to Aaron, the young son of the Mitchell family, a dinosaur-obsessed kid (voiced by the film’s director, Mike Rianda) who, like the rest of the humanity, is so transfixed by his phone that he barely notices when AI technology turns on him and attempts to shoot the entirety of the species into space. It is perhaps a little disturbing that my son would watch a movie about the perils of reliance on technology and have his visceral response essentially be, “I want to be more reliant on technology!” but, hey, he’s six years old, I’ll let it slide.

I’m not sure how old Aaron is supposed to be in the film, but my best guess is older than Wynn but younger than my other son, William, who is nine and who started grousing himself. “Yeah, that kid still likes dinosaurs, and he has a phone,” he said. (William enjoys ticking off things he’s now too old for.) “That’s so unfair.”

I would like to say I shut the movie off then and there and lectured them about experiencing the world in all its glory…