They say that having a baby will change your life forever, and after having four of them I have to agree. As a parent you find that you’re living a life you never imagined before it actually happens. Handling poop, for instance. That was something I didn’t expect, even though I was fairly certain that babies didn’t hold it in for 18 years. It had to go somewhere. I just didn’t realize how hands-on it was going to be.

Another change you can count on as a new parent is that within weeks after the new arrival, all of your old friends disintegrate and are reformed into a brand new circle of friends. Who all have kids. It’s the Unspoken Rule of Parenthood: breeders and non-breeders can’t be in the same room together without bloodshed and explosions. Like mixing ammonia and chlorine bleach.
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I’m the first to admit that I had no long-range plan in mind when deciding to have my four (FOUR!) children. Not that any of them appeared in a basket on my doorstep overnight, so there was some planning involved, but it never occurred to me to sit myself down at 18 or so and think about the next 30 years of my life in terms of when best to have kids, especially when I was having trouble deciding between majoring in Biology (doctor!) or Theater Arts (waitress!).

I may be alone in this un-planning. It turns out that quite a few people put a lot of thought into when they fit Having Kids into the messy, complicated other life-bits like Work, Relationships, and Family.

According to what I gleaned from this Motherlode post over at the New York Times, there are two schools of thought:
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My son, 14, wants a cell phone. Preferably with a big shiny touch screen and lots of apps. Like an iPhone or something that runs Google Android. He has awesome taste — gets his appreciation for tech-geekiness from my side of the family.

Cell phone was at the top of his Christmas list, even above “new bed,” which would be a bed long enough for his 6-foot-and-growing frame so that his feet don’t hang over the edge. But he didn’t tell anyone about his list but me, and “cell phone for a kid who NEVER CALLS ANYONE” wasn’t in my budget this year. Plus, he doesn’t live with me. A mere technicality.

Since it’s now been a couple of years since I lived full time with anyone from whom I’d be likely to hear, “But Mooooooom, everybody has one!” I thought I’d do some Extremely Scientific Research about the percentage of 14-year olds who own cell phones. Do kids need cell phones?
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