Data Limit

Way back in the olden days, before Wi-Fi and smartphones, back when a word processor was a typewriter and if you wanted to listen to music on the go you had to get a device that would play cassette tapes, the Mom of No was a teenager with a part-time job.

Every two weeks I'd get paid, and then I'd head to the mall to spend my hard earned fortune on clothes and accessories, because that was what you did if you were a teenaged girl in the 1980's; you spent your money on neon Flashdance-styled sweatshirts, hair spray for that big hair look, and jelly shoes to go with your jumpsuits.  I owned a yellow and black jumpsuit that I considered at the time to be the height of fashion, but now I look at photos of me wearing it and realize that I really looked like a tall bumblebee with extremely fluffy hair.  My mother probably tried to warn me and I probably rolled my eyes at her and muttered "whatever" under my breath. 

No, I'm not telling anyone where those photos are.  They exist.  That's all you're going to get.

Evidently things have changed considerably, because teenagers- at least the ones living in the Household of No- don't spend their money on clothes.  One spends it all on Legos, and the other spends it on Starbucks and data.

If you had told me back in the 1980's that in about 30 years I'd have a teenager who spent her money on food and data, my reactions probably would have been, "Huh? Data? Like, where do you buy that? I've never seen a data store at the mall. And what is Starbucks? Coffee drinks? Oh, gag me with a spoon!".

When the Teenager got her first smartphone- claiming that she needed it "for school",with the age-old claim (that actually ended up to be true in this instance) that "everyone has a smartphone except me"- I added her to the family data plan and told her what her data limit was.  I was confident that she would not need more than the amount of data the plan provided; she had Wi-Fi at home and Wi-Fi at school, and who sits around playing on their phones when they're hanging out with their friends or out in places where there is no Wi-Fi?  After all, the purported use of this device was for "schoolwork".

Ha ha ha.  I was clearly the Mom of Naïve about Technology, because it soon became readily apparent that this phone was going to get a lot of use.  Almost immediately, I started getting text messages from the Household of No's cell phone service provider about "data use alerts".  Apparently, data was needed to listen to music while walking to and from school, and on the bus to band activities, and the "Wi-Fi speed at school isn't very good", and I learned that watching videos apparently eats a lot of data. 

When I formulated retorts to these arguments about why the data amount allocated to teenager use wasn't actually sufficient, I realized I was starting to sound like the Grandpa of No.  Why do you have to listen to music while walking around?  The chirping of the birds isn't enough music for you? Why are you using your phone at school? Aren't you supposed to be paying attention in class?  Do you ever actually talk to people, or do you just sit around on your phone looking at pictures of kittens and people doing insane stunts on You-Tube?

Then the Teenager acquired a part-time job.  The first month she went over her data limit (twice), and I informed her that she owed me $20.  It's a good thing you have a job, I told her.  Now you can pay for your own data.

OK, she said, shrugging.  Just take it out of my debit account when I get paid.

You realize you worked almost three hours to pay for that data, right? I asked her.  Twenty bucks for something that isn't even real. 

MOM! I said I'd pay for it! she responded in that "Mom! Whatever!" tone of voice parents of teenagers know all so well. 

I now understand how my mother probably felt when she tried to warn me about the bumblebee jumpsuit in the dressing room at Macy's 30 years ago.  Now when I think about that atrocious fashion mistake, I wish I had saved my money instead- but at the time it seemed like the best possible use of my hard-earned wages.  As the Grandma of No said so many years ago when I would make dubious (to her) purchases with my own cash, "Hey, it's your money!".

At least data doesn't clutter up her room, get left on the floor, or outgrown. It doesn't fall out of fashion two days after it was bought, or become part of embarrassing photos from the 1980's best hidden away in old photo albums and stored in some undisclosed location.