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“Mum please buy for me a phone, I am the only one in the estate who does not have one,” my nearly eight-year-old Tasha recently pleaded with me.

“Forget it,” I just dismissed her.

“But muuuuuuuuuum...” she went on in that cheeky style she uses to win over my heart when she wants something from me.

“I’m just asking for a cheap phone. My friends have expensive tablets and smart phones and I am just asking for a cheap kaphone. Woiye,” she pushed on. But I stood my ground - no gadget for an underage child. Secondary school kid? Also a no, but subject to review.

My friends who have succumbed to this pressure take me for a mean, backward woman who does not want to move with the times but, I have valid reasons.

The most my daughter can get is to use my phone or their dad’s tablet to play games occasionally but under strict supervision. So why am I that ‘anti-development’?

First, they just do not deserve it. Just because you can afford it does not mean they deserve it. You see the problem with middle class parents is we think just because she is your child; she deserves everything you can afford. As long as they ask for it, it is theirs. For me it does not work like that. I do not see what is so pressing that they must own theirs.

I mean a gadget for what? Playing Angry Birds and Temple Rush. Let them do that on your phone.

It is too dangerous out there. Once you get a child these gadgets, the next thing is the Internet. But we all know that the wide world web is such a dangerous place where dragons roam about ready to pounce on innocent victims.

Why expose your child to pornographic videos, pedophiles and all manner of monsters on the Internet. Yes there are apps to block all these, but it’s always safer just to just keep them off.

It distracts their attention from their core business which is being kids.

Being children entails playing, and exploring the outside world, but when they have these gadgets, they are glued to them 24/7.

It reminds me of my friend's ten-year-old daughter who always retorts, “Why go play outside and get dirty when I can just stay indoors and watch Hanna Montana on my smart phone,” when her mum insists she goes outside to play with other kids. My policy is that as long as a child is in primary school, no phone or no tablet for them.

I am sure not all parents are as conservative as me. Some guardians are of the view that that times are changing and children need to go with the times.

I do not dispute that. My argument is that getting them such stuff at a young age tends to spoil them and gives them a sense of entitlement and they start to think that everything mum and dad owns is theirs and they have a right to it.

And by the way, that remote control ought to be controlled by only two people- mum and dad. I rest my case.