where ever my daughter has gone, she has always had a quarter or two perhaps three, tucked inside her back pack for an [emergency] phone call. I taught her how to use a phone myself, then a pay phone and practiced with her until she could recite her and her families full names and numbers and make successful calls. I wanted her safe.
Every day I reach in her bag and if I feel no quarters, I drop a few more in and replenish the supply. Now again I need reminding as she's getting older and I'm not in her stuff like I used to be or as often. Privacy you know?
As she heads out to go to a friends, to school, the pool and out in the world, I always ask "do you have a couple of quarters?". I save them for this purpose.
Recently I was dropping the child off at swimming lessons at the pool when she notified me that she was out of phone call quarters. There were none in the car in the ashtray which was odd but ok, and in my purse was not one.
A bunch of silver rattled about in the bottom of my bag and I was able to pull together .50 cents to hand to my daughter. She looked at my out stretched hand and then at my face. She looked as though I was pulling a joke on her and she did not know the punch line.
"What am I supposed to do with that?" she snarkily says to me, while shaking her head and eyeing me like I'm from some foreign planet.
"Use it to make a phone call, if need be, sorry, I have no quarters." I smile.
As she throws up her hands in despair she says, "Mom look in your own hand, those aren't quarters and you can't make a phone call at a pay phone with out a quarter." She said it so matter of factly, it was a mantra almost for her.
In my haste to teach my child about using a public telephone, I never taught her that you can use any combination of silver to make that phone call. As I had ever only taught using a quarter and always given her quarters, this was her first time to learn differently.
Her face lit up as I explained to her that a pay phone takes dimes, nickels and quarters, that it was able to do that math. It was funny, sort-of, we had a laugh. She's 12 almost 13 and has been able to use a pay phone since age 3.
In future, she's in charge of making sure she has phone call change.
Jennifer ... Vancouver's Sex Educator, Sexuality Coach and Activist. The content of this blog is not suited for those under the age of 18. What you'll find here is a written account of my personal journey in sex positive culture both personally and professionally.
