A Public Service Announcement

Now that more and more households are dropping a “land line” or “house phone” from their budgets and handing all of the people, including the children, in their family a cell phone, it occurred to me the other day that an entire generation of kids are coming up with absolutely no telephone skills to speak of.

There is no adult buffer or go-between. A kid just has to call a kid. And when they do get on the telephone with an adult, they don’t understand how to properly conduct themselves.

Case in point (and mind you, this is the most recent – it is not, by far, the only example):

My house phone: ring ring

Me: Hello?

13-year old child on the other end: Who’s this?

Me: [pause then spoken in the voice one saves specifically for irritation directed at a teenager] This is Mrs. Bridgeman.

[click]

Me: KAYLEE!

The child was expecting another child to answer the phone, and when an adult answered, they had no idea how to act.

Please. Please please please. Despite that Joey or Jane may carry a cell phone and you never have to worry about it, please teach your children telephone manners. I would prefer to spend the next 16+ years of children in my home actually communicating with the children who call my home. But beyond that, this generation of children are going to enter the workforce (assuming when they get the call informing them of potential employment that they are capable of conducting the call) and are going to need to know the basics of phones in order to conduct business.