Cell phones and hammers

I love this story.

A 13-year-old in Wyoming ran up her monthly cell phone bill to about $5,000 by texting. (Was she doing it in church? See previous post….hehe) Her dad received the bill and then smashed her cell phone with a hammer. I have one thing to say: Way to go Dad!

Wait, maybe not.

Why did he give a 13-year-old a phone? I didn’t get a phone until I was 16, and even then I had to pay for my own minutes.

I think it should be a federal law that anyone under 18-years-old who wants a phone should have to pay for it. Wait, make that ANYONE who wants a phone should have to pay for it themselves; it’s only fair.

It sickens me when I hear college students say, ‘oh I don’t care how many texts I send because my parents pay for my phone anyway.’ I have a good friend, who is almost 30, who has never once paid his cell phone bill. His parents, well into their 60s, still pay his cell phone bill.

Ugh.

Paying your own cell phone bill teaches responsibility that no other bill paying can. In a way, you can control how much your phone will be every month, unlike your electric, gas or water bills. Texts or no texts? Nights starting at 7 p.m. or 9 p.m.?

The moral of the story is this: if the 13-year-old was paying her own cell phone bill she wouldn’t have ran up her bill to almost $5,000.