Two years back, when Senior Junior was in P5, I bought him a brand new mobile phone and gave him a spare SIM card that I hardly used, much against the Slim Lady's better judgement. The idea was to make him contactable when he needed to stay back in school for after-school activities.
Mindful of abuse, I drew up a "contract", stipulating various clauses such as Senior Junior having to pay up the difference should the bill exceed the monthly subscription of $9. The contract also stated that the mobile phone would be confiscated if it became an obsession. By obsession, I meant catching Senior Junior fiddling the phone during meal time, study time and sleeping time. Well, it did become an obsession. But that was not the reason why the phone was eventually confiscated.
What ultimately did Senior Junior in was the bill he chalked up. In just two months, he ran up a bill of $400, and all for downloading games and ringtones. And this despite repeated warnings from me, even though he naively told me that the downloading was free, or so he said his friends told him!
He protested when I took back the phone. But I told him the contract is legal binding. It took him about a month to get used to the idea of not having a phone.
Since then, Senior Junior has never ever pestered us for a phone. I think the time is right to give him one, now that he's in secondary school. He stays back often in school and sometimes, he simply didn't call back to tell the Grandma, the care-giver to let her know that he has to stay back in school. The phone is also our way of keeping tap on his whereabouts, to put it honestly. The Slim Lady apparently supports my decision this time round.
Actually, there's another more compelling reason why I decided to give him a phone. When I confiscated Senior Junior's phone years ago, I realised that he had been storing some of the smses the Slim Lady and myself sent him. Such smses contain messages of endearment like "Daddy and mummy love you", and encouragement such as "You're a bright boy and you can do it". Kids do treasure such messages from their parents. How else do you explain it's in the "archive" folder? It made me realise that somehow, we are more forthcoming with our affections and encouragement to our kids when it comes to smses or writing, more so than in person. Perhaps this has something to do with our up-bringing and our Chinese culture. We're just not that demonstrative when it comes to expressing our love, even to our kids. No, correction - we do hug and kiss them but that stops when the kid reaches 13 and above.
Sadly, as Senior Junior gets older, I too find that I'm communicating less with him. Smses is a gateway of sort, for me to reach out to him and perhaps bridge that little gap between son and dad. Of course, I'll be naive to think that sms is all it takes to bridge that gap. How else do I explain the constant "bickering" I have with Victor, a good pal 9 years my senior, all via smses no less! And we're no where near bridging the gap between us! Of course, Victor will argue that no generation-gap exists between us... But that's another story, another time ...
And so, Senior Junior got his new handphone today. It's also a birthday present considering his birthday this Wednesdy. That reminds me .. better go draw up THAT contract again ....
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Obviously you haven't learnt the lesson even after paying $400 bills for 2 months phone subscription. What your senior junior meant when he said that the downloads were free was that they were free to him, never mind dad had to pay.
Just at the time when I am changing my senior junior's post-paid phone subscription to a pre-paid one, I hear that you are giving your son a post-paid phone (shaking my head). How are you to ensure that history doesn't repeat itself? Contracts are useless, I tell you - they are meant to be broken, as they have been before.
My son was also running up quite high GPRS (data) charges. Although his phone bill charges of about $30-$40 per month was paltry compared to your son's $200 per month, his bill amount was still highest amongst the 3 of us - the other 2 users being mum and dad. I felt that this situation was not quite right - how could someone who had not yet known how to earn money yet run up charges which was highest? Like you, this situation persisted despite many repeated reminders from me.
I guess children around our elder sons' ages tend to do such things, maybe because it is the trend or maybe our sons are just testing our patience and parenting skills.
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