My daughter, future miss teen Idaho

So now the kid knows her geography but has no chance of being Miss Teen Idaho ... tough trade-off.


Besides, aren't you in Utah now?

 

We'll move if she decides being Ms. Teen Anything is that important to her. Luckily, we don't think it's important to her.

What's important to her is her cell phone. Her school's website tells us her current grades in each class and the scores on each assignment. If she has a grade below a B- or a zero on any assignment, she gives us the phone until the grade goes back up.

 

I believe the official title is Miss Teen Whatever!

 

Such as.

 

Guh

 

Has she improved yet? Does she know what the capital of Cleveland is?

 

Stupid South Africa and The Iraq.

 

Yes, she has a cell phone. She earned it through meeting various pre-required academic and household steps. I'm OK with letting her earn certain privileges through hard work. She's a good girl, just wasn't ready to name her state capitals.

It's set to be text message non-compatible so she can't spend all day sending or receiving LOLs from her BFFs. I call her once or twice a day at school to see if it's turned off and it always has been. She gets a zero on an assignment, we get the cell phone for a week. She has a grade dip to a C or lower, we get the cell phone until the grade is a B- or better.

So far, no problems. But she has been able to reach us when her ride home from the movies with a friend forgot to pick them up at 11 p.m. once this summer.

 

Moddy,

Where you livin? I'd say 90 percent of the 13-year-old girls in my neck of the woods have cell phones.

 

I was wondering where the usual clamor for pictures had gone. Based on the assumption that men in newspapers generally, if inexplicably, marry attractive women, my hopes were she would resemble her mom. Even without ever seeing her dad's rugged mug.