Call me overzealously cautious, but I’m always going to ask first why the person is calling, regardless his/her age before entering in “rant mode”. It doesn’t seem that unreasonnable to do so, just in case.
Obviously, she didn’t know the rules about “late night” calls. A lot of people seem to think 9 p.m. is some universal cut-off time, but it’s not. Shit, if I called someone at, say, 9:30 and they answered with, “Do you know what time it is?” I would probably just respond “9:30” and wonder why the hell they had just asked me that.
Her parents missing (real example) and probably plenty of others could be thought of.
You totaly misunderstood my post.
I didn’t say “no rules at all”.
Let me rephrase:
Do you want your kids to think like that “It’s 10:00, I shouldn’t make a phonecall because its rude”,
or like that “It’s 10:00, I can’t make a phonecall because of the rules, but when I move out of the house there’s nothing to stop me”
Next time use that remaining brain cell before answering :mad:
You’re most certainly not speaking from me, so you could forget to add this sentence next time.
I for one, regret that some people are leaving as a result of the registration policy. Even people I don’t particularily like or agree with. Real jerks were usually banished, anyway. Yes, OK, this part is off-topic. But my point still hold. Don’t assume you’re speaking for anybody else, let alone for everybody.
At the risk of getting flamed: well, no. They don’t. They’re kids. I’m so sick of this “treat little kids like you do adults” line of thinking. They’re not adults. They’re children. They don’t have the experience, responsibility and world view of adults. They don’t pay bills, hold down a job or live an independent life. I am under no obligation to treat them as I would a collegue or a fellow adult. Being a child is great, you’ve got minimal responsibility, with mom and dad in charge of providing food, shelter, and other necessities. In exchange for having your basic needs met, you’re expected to (hopefully) respect your elders. Elders do not need to earn that respect.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying all kids need to respect all adults now matter how shitty of a person an adult may be. Respect can be lost. However, it does not need to be earned. Consider it your payment for getting to enjoy childhood without having to worry about feeding and clothing yourself.
Each day that goes by, children are accumulating more life experience. Most things they do are novel, and they learn the propriety of whatever they’re doing from the reactions of those they’re directing their actions towards, a la Miller’s post. If they’re doing something rude, they need to realize that it’s rude. Since everything they do is novel pretty much, the reaction is important. If there’s a way to internalize it “wow Ivylass got mad when I called that late, I don’t like it when she’s mad at me, I shouldn’t do that again” it’s more likely the child is going to remember the lesson. Also, not every rude thing Jr. does is going to recieve the Mr. Rogers approach TeaElle suggested. The world isn’t like that. So Jr. might as well get used to less of a Romper Room reaction to his social fau paux.
I’m sure Ivylass would’ve reacted differently had she heard an adult voice on the line. Because then there’s an indication it would’ve been something important. If the call was for Ivylad, from a co-worker as you suggested, there’s a possibility it would’ve been important and would’ve somehow impacted Ivylad’s livlihood, and thus that of his family. Be realistic though. How many honest to god emergencies do 11 year olds have? Comparing a late night call for an adult from their coworker to that of an 11 year old from their friend is ridiculous.
Riiight. And that’s why she called up a fellow 11 year old and asked to speak to her in a “perky voice”.
I repeat, comon’…
:rolleyes:
Ah yes, I’m sure Ivylass has never once mentioned that the rule is in place because it’s rude to call after a certain time.
Perhaps it’s you who should be using that remaining brain cell before answering, hmm?
The fuck they don’t. You don’t automatically command my respect because you are ten years older than me. You may command my courtesy, but I had better be treated with a modicum of decency in return.
You should be under an obligation to treat them as fellow people. You are under an obligation to treat them as someone who will be a colleague and a fellow adult. How do you know that thirteeb or fourteen year old doesn’t have a job? Hell, I graduate from college in three weeks, and I’m sixteen. If you want my respect, you had better give me the consideration you would a twenty two year old. I hate to sound like I feel entitled to anything, but automatically dismissing children as being dumb kids is profoundly disrespectful in my view.
My original post was NOT refering to Ivylass.
Yeah, dream on 
Concerning the “perky voice”, probably not. But as for calling another 11 yo (though in my example, she was actualy calling an adult), no, it wouldn’t surprise me a little bit. It’s not like kids are expected to react in the most sensible ways in unusua
Concerning the “perky voice”, probably not. But as for calling another 11 yo (though in my example she was actually calling an adult), it wouldn’t surprise me the slightest bit. It’s not like kids are expected to always react in the most sensible way in unusal circumstances. Well…actually, adults don’t, either.
Besides, and this is related to my own personnality, I’m easily worried. So, if I had the slighest doubt after having hanged up, I would feel bad, because I would wonder whether or not it could have been something important or serious.
Shit happens. And though on the overall, being overzealously cautious is a pain, sometimes it can (and actually did in my experience) prove extremely useful. I’d rather be worried for nothing than live forever with regrets because I ignored an emergency.
I do not have time to read this entire thread (I should be working instead of surfing the SDMB anyway), but I wanted to add this:
I was not allowed to take calls after 10 p.m. (might have been 9), and generally, even as a teenager, didn’t really want to talk to anyone that late at night. Of course, I had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to go to Seminary (Mormon parents) so I had a self-imposed early bedtime.
I saw a few responses early in this thread, about “how do you know it wasn’t an emergency?” If it had been, the caller would not have apologized and hung up. She must be one of those kids whose parents refuse to put any limits on at all. If it was an emergency, I’m confident the OP would have known. That Parental Kid-In-Danger Radar would have kicked in. IMHO.
Although my parents didn’t really have to go to much effort to enforce this rule, they were flexible enough to make an exception. Once, a friend of mine who lived up the street, had a terrible fight with her mother. She was very upset, crying and suicidal. Rather than hurt herself, she showed up at my door at 11p.m. on a school night. My parents could see how upset she was and let her go up to my room to cry on my shoulder. I think I walked her home after a while (it was only a couple doors down) but my parents never said a word about it. Of course, they expressed their concern and offered to help my friend and I told them she had bigger problems than any of us could address and they had done the best thing anyone could have: allowed me to simply listen and be supportive, regardless of the hour. That was a one-time thing and although I don’t believe I actually saved my friend’s life, I know she went home feeling a lot better, so breaking the rule once, for a real friend-in-need emergency (and, mind you this was a Teenager Emergency, not a Real Emergency where someone was bleeding out they eyeballs and needed an ambulance or something) was just not a big deal.
My $0.02.
Oh, for gods sake. Why don’t you try responding to what I said instead of implying things I in no way advocated? I never said “treat all kids like crap until they reach the age of 18, and they’d better respect you in return.” Frankly, I’m insulted at the implication. In fact, I specifically said respect could be lost, just to make it crystal clear that was not what I was advocating.
For starters, I was referring to an 11 year old interacting with the parent of one of their friends. Not a 16 year old college graduate interacting with a 26 year old fellow college graduate. Congratulations by the way, that’s quite an achievement.
I think it’s safe to assume an 11 year old doesn’t have a job. Even IF they had a job, how does that equate to “now I can be treated like an adult?” Working at the DQ for some extra spending money does not an adult make. I was working at 14 and if I had copped attitude with an adult because they didn’t respect me as an equal because I was slinging cookies at the Cookie Stop my mother would’ve smacked me upside the head. Rightfully so.
I don’t care if she’s a future janitor, or the future President of the United States. She’s an 11 year old. An 11 year old is not my equal. Period. I’m not going to go out of my way to treat an 11 year old as if they’re my equal. That was what my post said. Nothing more.
What the fuck is up with people giving completely off-point comparisons? Are you all that desperate to have the opposite point of view? My all means, counter-view your hearts out, but at least give a comparable hypo! If a child is calling an adult, it’s obviously an entirely different situation than a child calling another child.
Gah!
When I was in high school, I was allowed to talk on the phone between 7pm and 8pm PERIOD. Not before, and not after. That was my hour-long window. Not when you could call–but when I could talk. If you called at 7:55, we’d have 5 minutes to talk before I had to go.
This included weekends and vacations. It had nothing to do with when my mom went to bed, either. It was an arbitrary rule set up because my mom felt that I needed to be punished. She always kept in in a perpetual state of being at least somewhat punished the entire time I lived with her.
As for me, I don’t care when people call the house. Dominic can’t talk on the phone after 9pm, because that is his bedtime. If it’s 3am I may be awake and talk to you or I may say “I’m asleep, can I call you back tomorrow?” or I may say “I was asleep but I can always go back to sleep later, what’s up?” I usually fall back asleep pretty easily so it isn’t a big deal. I wouldn’t call someone else’s house after 9 though. Heck, probably not even after 8:30 or so unless it was someone I knew well.
Do you honestly think someone old enough (and mature enough) to move out is going to have this attitude?
Well ok, some might. Like the dude with the funny name.
Indeed. A kid with excellent manners would have started with, "Hello, Ms. Ivylass. This is Ivyfriend. I’m sorry to be calling so late, but . . . "
In an emergency, even an adult might not think of that, but you would expect them to respond to Ivylass’s challenge with, “Yes, I know it’s late, and I’m sorry to disturb you, but [insert Very Good Reason here].”
As a kid, I, for one, learned many a good and lasting lesson about politeness by being on the recieving end of a sharp rebuke from an adult, and somehow it did not crush my Young Spirit or shatter my Faith in Humanity.
When I was 11 I had serious phone anxiety. Talking to someone’s parents on the phone would have really intimidated me, and I probably would have stammered out a “is so and so there” reasonably well, but not much else. Hanging up would have been my choice, too.
Odd, really, since in face to face conversations you couldn’t shut me up… but talking to strangers on the phone was something I had issues with until I was well into my 20s.
Funny, I’m just the opposite. I’m great on the phone: confident, quick, smart. But get me face to face with someone and I’m a blathering fool. Not good in my line of work, where schmoozing is muy importante.
I think it’s because I’m so self conscious about my age. I’m pretty young and am more often than not, the youngest person in the room at business events. Can be pretty intimidating. It’s a bit harder to tell someones age over the phone.
