Ring. Ring. Why not gimme a call? Ring. Ring. Happiest sound of them all
YOUNG Persephone arrived home from school singing cheerily, with a smile on her lips and a spring in her step. I thought at first it might be a burglar I heard at the door. The daughter who trudged out of Medders Manor in the morning was a haunted, foot-dragging soul, her expression veering erratically from troubled scowl to tearful sorrow. The daughter who skipped back that evening was a completely different person, belting out Abba lyrics with a ‘Mamma Mia!’ dance to match. It was our Persephone alright, not an intruder - just a happier, bouncier, noisier, altogether more pleasant Persephone than the sullen Persephone who had slouched out six hours earlier.
The sullen, tortured version materialised the previous day, a snarling, crying young woman who was all the time teetering on the edge of hysteria. As a caring parent, I had been concerned when the mood of our youngest took such a drastic dip.
We had tears, prompted by the any and every minor upset, from the way her mother looked at her to the way her brother did not look at her. At that rate we hardly knew where or whether to look at her for fear of offending. We had tantrums, loudly expressed displeasure at having to remove her maths books from the dining table or at the way some well-meaning friend had commented on the state of her hair. Living with the sullen Persephone during that fraught spell was like residing in a minefield.
The downswing was so abrupt that I concluded it must be to do with her (ahem) Thingies. You know, the hormone Thingies, the Thingies that hapless old dads are happy to have managed by mothers, the Thingies dealt with by a helpful variety of products on sale along an aisle of the supermarket which I never frequent. But Hermione, dear, on-the-ball Hermione, knew for sure that this was the wrong time of month for Thingies.
And anyway, the symptoms were far worse than any mere bout of Thingies. Eventually, after much delicate probing, like a bomb disposal expert assessing a particularly cunning explosive device, her mother discovered what was amiss with our miss. Persephone, it emerged, had been deprived of her phone.
No greater blow to the morale of the modern teenaged girl is possible than sundering her from her Samsung, or amputating her from her Apple. To this generation, the smart phone has become more than a mere device, more than an accessory, and more like an integral part of personality and existence. To be strictly accurate, she still had the phone in her possession but it was of no use to her since it had been put in a sealed envelope. The seal was to be broken only in the event of family bereavement or having to make a 999 call.
Yes, some enterprising teacher had persuaded Persephone’s class to endure 24 hours of phonelessness. No threads. No messages. No Snapchat. For one whole interminable day.
They made a ceremony of publicly placing the precious apparatus in the envelopes and applying the elaborate seals in full view of impartial witnesses. As an exploration of sacrifice, this surrendering of phones was far more powerful than knocking off chocolate for Lent or putting loose change in the Trócaire box. Our daughter, though her mood was that of a sleep deprived rattle snake until the seal was broken, played fair for each and every one of the 24 hours while not all of her comrades so conscientious.
She reported with a mixture of admiration and indignation that some of her most desperate schoolmates contrived to operate basic phone functions through the paper of their envelopes. She was convinced that there were others – probably the ones with the meekest and most angelic expressions – who handed up their brothers’ phones, allowing them to continue slyly with business as usual…
This ancient dad feels that switching the damned mobile off is a luxury to be desired, not the horrid journey into Limbo as perceived by teenaged girls. And the strangest thing of all from my ancient standpoint is that they very seldom use their phones to make actual phone calls.
Taking phones away for a day was a noble exercise but a traumatic experience for all involved. Now, welcome back, Persephone.