William Brock: 12 is too young to have a smartphone

I didn’t start out trying to ruin my daughter’s life, but now that she’s 12, I think I’m pretty close. My wife also is complicit, so we’re on par with Bonnie and Clyde.

Our crime? We won’t supply her with a fully armed smartphone.

All her friends have them, and most of her friends’ younger siblings have them. But our poor girl doesn’t, which makes her “a loser” in the social hierarchy of middle school.

Yes, we are The Worst Parents Ever. By denying her a phone, we have doomed her to a lifetime of shame and ridicule.

So we’ve been told.

I’m an old-school parent who’s still willing to say “No” when his kids make requests that aren’t – in my estimation – in their best interest. We old-schoolers are a dying breed, but I’m too old to upgrade my operating system.

The way I see it, a smartphone is both powerfully addictive and a black hole for time, energy and youthful enthusiasm. Ironically, most kids don’t even talk on their phones anymore. They just “like” and “follow” and “friend” and “unfriend” each other like office drones toiling away in their cubicles.

I’ve seen them on sunny days when the sky is blue and the birds are singing, loitering in the shadows – phones in hand – like glow worms in a cave. Dull-eyed, sluggish and apparently miserable.

I should know, because I’ve been there, and done that, myself.

According to the tireless wonks at the Pew Research Center, 73 percent of American teens have access to a smartphone, 15 percent have access to a basic phone, and an unloved 12 percent have no phone at all. (Those figures are from April 2015, so it’s a good bet the trend has strengthened since then.)

In my case, the easy fix would be to cave in to my daughter’s pleas and get her a flippin’ cellphone. Oops, not a flip phone; it must be a full-service smartphone to navigate the stormy seas of Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and whatever else has been released in the past 15 minutes.

Cost isn’t the issue. My wife and I could afford it.

The issue is that we want our daughter to enjoy her few remaining years of childhood. We want to lessen the risk of cyberbullying and the subtler, but no less worrisome, stress of Major Girl Drama in the 24/7 world of cyberspace. We don’t want her huddling under her blankets at night, feverishly trying to generate more “followers” and “likes” and whatever else passes for human connection these days.

Though we continually second-guess ourselves, my wife and I are standing firm to deny our pre-teen daughter a cellphone. It doesn’t make us happy, but we think it’s the right thing to do.

My wife says the embargo may end on her 13th birthday. I’m hoping it will last until she’s 14.

As for our daughter? She can always sue us later.

William Brock, a.k.a. The Worst Father in the World, lives in Pullman.