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Get two iphones because someone things his smartphone is lame?

Wtf what are you a sheep?

Educate your kids to be more independent and think for themselves.

And no I also didn't had always the cool shit as other kids.

No one cares and no it doesn't matter

But here’s what is actually going on:

The dad has political opinions about smartphones. The kid doesn’t care about his dad’s political opinions and just wants an iPhone.

The dad is as much succumbing to whatever anti-iPhone narrative he is being sold online as the kid is succumbing to whatever pro-iPhone narrative he’s on the receiving end of.

A Samsung s20 might also be much cheaper.

And why should anyone follow trends just because of some kids?

> No one cares and no it doesn't matter

I think the child being bullied and excluded would disagree.

'excludes' come on.

Because being bullied means being included!

Look becoming an independent human being who learns earlier than later that you don't need to just run behind others might just be worth it.

And no the solution to bulling is not buying hip shit

The kid, is thinking for themselves.

Not blindly accepting dad's lame rationalizations.

I mean he didn't just say his phone was lame, he said S20-because-sideloading was lame...and yes, that means dad is kinda' lame.

Like all dad's.

as a parent, part of my job is to protect my children from harm. thus regardless of the kids wishes, they will not be getting an iphone (or a regular android phone).

“I need an iPhone because I have a girlfriend.”

"if that is what your girlfriend expects from you, then she is not a true friend. i know this may be painful, but true friends do not focus on things like that. try to be persistent. this is a good test for your friendship. if she insists, then let her go. you will not be happy with her in the future, because she will continue to pressure you to buy fancy things, and that is not the kind of relationship you want."

Great way of ruining your child's relationships.

it will ruin the toxic relationships and make room for better ones.

But you don't understand the fact that this is how modern relationships work.

Internet and texting is where everything happens these days and you can't force your understanding of the world on your kids.

In this day and age, how can anyone even begin to have a relationship without being able to contact them when you want to? It is not something fancy, it's a basic necessity if you want your kid to not turn out a social pariah.

that's not what i am responding to.

the original message was "i need an iphone" not "i need a phone".

my response specifically addresses the request for something they shouldn't need since they already had a phone (i could not find any specifics about a tracphone, but i guess it is android based)

and since this was likely not clear, by not giving my kids a regular android phone, i meant one with a manufacturer provided android. they will be getting something with a version of android customized for privacy, like /e/ or something similar.

The messages were, I have a girlfriend and I want an iPhone.

They came out together ten minutes into a two hour drive and five minutes later he was asleep because I said, I will talk about it with mama.

And later that same day while he was doing his soccer things, I did on my Windows Phone. And then we all talked some more over the next few days.

Mostly about the girlfriend. Because it was awesome to see him reach that stage of his life…we were that age once.

The iPhone came eventually after a few weeks. I think it turned out a positive tool for social navigation in his circumstance.

Other kids have other circumstances. But they are not my kid for better or worse. Your kid certainly isn’t.

ok, that's much less dramatic than i envisioned it. in any case i didn't intend to comment on your specific experience but to an envisioned scenario where the girlfriend is the main or only reason to want an iphone.

and it's wonderful that your son can talk to you about his girlfriend. i could not talk to my parents about that. i hope my kids will be comfortable to talk with me when the time comes.

Ten years later -- late last year -- he called me about a thing with a girlfriend.

We all start with lots of theories about parenting. We end with experience and memories. Hopefully, the kind that make you miss them (it's hard to wish that your child would miss you). And we all have the option of not parenting like our parents.

The iPhone was a tool for social navigation. It replaced a flip-phone.

We got the flip-phone as a tool for the just-in-case cases. There's a lot of growth between fourth and seventh grade...the girlfriend uhm was an obvious example...anyway, a big part of that growth is peers bove into the center of a child's attention. The parents are still there, but they're not the only thing there anymore.

Just like it was for me. Maybe like it was for you...it is for a lot of people, but not everyone (I wrote that because I took what you wrote at face value).

It's easy to read things into what people write that provide an excuse to express outrage...expressing outrage is often a form of socially acceptable creativity. It's ok to say "I wrote because they wrote something outrageous."

We all need creativity, but telling someone "I write because I like to write" feels unsafe. One thing I learned from HN is to read what people wrote charitably.

But for the record, I don't give a shit whether or not buying my kid an iPhone is ok with you.

It replaced a flip-phone

ok, that's a lot more reasonable than replacing a recent android phone, ignoring the iphone vs android debate.

in written communication it is a lot easier to take something personal that wasn't meant to be. it is also more difficult to make clear that something isn't personal.

my outrage in this thread is targeted at the idea that an iphone is required for youth to fit in. a point that several people here have accepted and supported. the reason to share this outrage is to gather support against this idea and to get ideas how to deal with it and how to talk to my children about it. it is good to know that there is support, but also interesting to see that this is quite controversial.

i appreciate your measured, insightful and quite personal contributions to this topic.

Ahem... the last time i checked basic text messaging and voice calling still worked (and email, web based chat, irc, or even a fracking landline...

Facetime however doesn't, and if I was a high schooler with a girlfriend thats likely what I'd use. That and gamepigeon "games", group chats, a fair bit of stuff thats a nonissue to older people but to high schoolers is absolutely nessecary for relationships to function

... are you really going to use email or irc in high school

what can facetime do that telegram or other messaging apps that support video chat can't? as far as i can tell they are now equivalent. we are not talking about irc or email here. true alternatives to facetime do exist.

As much as I despise Apple, they won this battle in the US. this isn't. About technology or whether or not video calls happen to exist on another platform. If for some reason GP's son was unable to create a twitter account when all his friends were on twitter, you can't just say "he can create an account on mastodon". Sure, it's technically similar but that doesn't matter because the problem is a social one and Apple has recognized that and has successfully tuned middle school kids into their sycophants by refusing to implement RCS. The fact that moving to a different messaging platform would solve this does not matter, because if these kids were willing to move platforms they wouldn't bully someone for having a green bubble to begin with.

???What are you talking about? You really think Mastodon is a fair comparison? And bringing RCS here is also pointless.

To use WhatsApp/Duo/etc, all it takes is a phone number and maybe an email address (or a Google account you already have), and a few minutes of time.

If someone's girlfriend is like "I would rather just use FaceTime and call you 'by phone number', instead of spending that few minutes to set up an account for an app we can both use", I would agree with the person above -- this is too toxic.

> To use WhatsApp/Duo/etc, all it takes is a phone number and maybe an email address (or a Google account you already have), and a few minutes of time.

> If someone's girlfriend is like "I would rather just use FaceTime and call you 'by phone number', instead of spending that few minutes to set up an account for an app we can both use", I would agree with the person above -- this is too toxic.

On principle, I agree the hurdle is not high to get another app/account. I even stand with you to not give in and succumb to this behavior.

The social aspect is harder. It may be easy to convince 1 person (the girlfriend) to do this, but what about her attached network of friends and all the group chats that come with? Will it be easy to convert all her friend groups and setup all the group chats to replace the existing ones?

I'm not sure anyone has that strong of a network effect unless they're at the top of the heap. In which case the girlfriend would have probably just downloaded the app and setup the account.

Even if they convinced the girlfriend and not her network of friends to get the app and new account, it would essentially still exclude and make them a "second class citizen" in that group. All it would take is not opening the app or seeing the notification or acting upon it to be relegated.

I think those not as tech friendly would want multiple 1 to 1 chat apps where there was one or very few people were on the other side. Just easier to convert people to the majority.

i am sorry, i simply can not accept defeat on this issue. i do not have the financial means to buy iphones for all my kids (even old/used ones), so they will have to accept alternatives, and what matters here is to find ways to talk to the kids to understand that what they want is simply not possible in this form.

Wait so is the issue financial or philosophical? If you had the financial means would you just buy iPhones for all of them if that’s what they wanted?

it's both. i brought up the financial side to make clear that this is not something where i am going to budge, and i am not interested in any solution that involves buying iphones.

this is also an issue of social justice and exclusion of lower income families. anyone who is arguing that not getting an iphone means depriving their children from getting friends is missing the point. if that is what is happening in a community then that community is seriously broken, and we need to address this problem. excluding others because they don't have the necessary tech gadget is something that should not be allowed to happen.

if my kids do this to others then i failed as a parent.

> anyone who is arguing that not getting an iphone means depriving their children from getting friends is missing the point. if that is what is happening in a community then that community is seriously broken, and we need to address this problem.

This is kind of like saying, “Yes my house is on fire now, but rather than put it out right now, we should research and develop fireproof houses.” Cool idea but your house still burns down. You can work on the bigger societal problem but if you can, address the immediate issue, which is you kid getting bullied. And yes it sucks if you can’t afford it, but if you can, buying the iPhone is a simple way to resolve the issue your kid is facing (albeit not the underlying problem).

“Yes my house is on fire now, but rather than put it out right now, we should research and develop fireproof houses.”

so then what is your suggestion to put out the fire?

to stay with the comparison: there is no water.

if your idea of putting out the fire is getting iphones, then that simply is not an option. and then you are getting back to bullying. giving in to bullys is not an acceptable solution. the iphone will not solve the problem here at all.

bullying needs to be addressed differently. but that is not even something i am worried about. simply the inability to participate is already a problem. and it's going to remain a problem for those that can't get those tech gadgets. so what do you propose that we do about this? run a fundraiser and donate iphones to poor kids? legislate that kids have a right to communicate and are thus entitled to get an iphone? force apple to lower their prices?

here is one that might actually work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34993823 require apple to make imessage interoperable, or at least force them to support imessage to run on android. it would not make the FOSS advocate in me happy, but that at least would be putting out the fire.

> giving in to bullys is not an acceptable solution

Of course it is! It’s called picking your battles and sometimes you give in and sometimes you don’t. Everybody loses sometimes.

sorry, hard disagree. giving in is never good. it's not picking your battles, but it is letting the others win, and they'll keep doing it because by giving in you give them power over you.

> it's not picking your battles, but it is letting the others

This is the literal definition of picking your battles.

Nah... perhaps i am just too stubborn, but even my 8 year old self confronted the big bad russian kid that bullied me about a dozent times... got stomped in the ground in 9 of 10 times, but in the end i simply WON. He aknowledged, that i was more trouble than the bit fun bullying me was worth it.

Never "picked my fights" at any time in my life... make me feel treated unfair (or observe someone treated unfair) and i go full psycho mode. Yeah, i got stomped in the ground many times in my life (lost a few teeth, got broken bones, where fired or thrown out of places) but i am just too stubborn and stupid to give in.

> i got stomped in the ground many times in my life (lost a few teeth, got broken bones, where fired or thrown out of places) but i am just too stubborn and stupid to give in.

Congrats.

There were plenty of things that he didn’t get for financial reasons.

Plenty he didn’t get for philosophical.

i simply can not accept defeat on this issue

For me doing something nice isn’t defeat, and his desire for an iPhone wasn’t an issue.

We were fortunate to be able to get him an iPhone. And fortunate he wanted an iPhone and not his own bong.

It might have worked out the same if we hadn’t. By working out I mean FaceTimeing with him now that he’s a grown ass man.

telegram doesn't come by default on my phone. getting a teenager to download telegram or duo or <insert other platform here> is hard. The power of facetime is any kid with an iphone has the ability to immediately video call any other kid with an iphone.

I'm not saying its a good thing. I despise that its practically impossible to have a social life without an iphone in a lot of urban american schools. Just know that by not budging and not getting your kid an iphone, you are causing them frustration and potentialy making them lose out on a significant part of their childhood.

Completely ridiculous. My kids didn't get phones until the last two years of high school. They used the home phone and their friends called them plenty. They got bullied for being white, should I have painted them black? I taught them how to deal with bullies and that the bullies were the ones with problems. Now I have three happy early 20 year olds with friends despite having no facebook (my boys didn't want one and my daughter deleted it because she didn't like it) and not always attached to their phones. My son who is interested in several subjects follows multiple discord forums and his brother follows more tech and open source stuff. My daughter simply prefers to talk to people in person. On a side note, learning to deal with frustration is part of becoming an adult. Life isn't fair, why would you teach your children to expect it to be? Instead I taught them to find balance, there's always some good with the bad.

They used the home phone

the trouble is of course, today there are no home phones anymore. the last one i saw a few years ago in china. but even when our internet service came with a phone we didn't bother connecting it. sooner or later home phones will be extinct.

there are laptops and internet but then it depends which messaging services work with out a phone. telegram, signal, whatsapp, wechat all require a phone.

i suppose a shared family mobile might work for calls, but not for messaging where surely everyone should have their own account.

In the same way as "ruining" one's dating opportunity when they appear as a green bubble rather than a blue bubble.

I can't imagine this sort of stuff deters Americans from dating. How bloody shallow can people get???

> Great way of ruining your child's relationships.

I had a similar conversation with my wife a few years back. Her sister's teenage kids insisted they needed iPhones "because all our friends use them."

And my wife explained this to me like this was a perfectly rational reason.

I started laughing and told her "If our kids said that to you, they'd get a long discussion about how that's a 'follower's mentality' and you're letting people who don't have your best interests at heart control your life for superficial reasons."

That being said, I think it depends on where OP's child is "at" mentally. It may be important enough to the child to still buy an iPhone simply because you don't want your kid to be miserable. But if that's the case, you should also try to have a conversation with the kid saying

"That's fine--it's obviously important enough to you right now, so we'll get an iPhone. But you might look back on this when you're older and think the brand of phone wasn't as important as you thought."

This is a great response.

As a person estranged with their parents, the fact that they did not attempt to interact with me at my own terms and demanded that I meet them on their is one of the main reasons we are as we are.