"Wear sunscreen"...

“Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)”-Baz Luhrmann

“Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future; sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists. Whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will expense this advice, now.”

At the risk of aging myself with this reference: Do you remember this “song”? It was released in 1999 and played on boomboxes, radios, and Walkman by teenagers nationwide and hit home with the graduating class of ’99. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s a speech filled with random but real pieces of advice from an average Joe type of guy.

My turn. The advice I’m offering isn’t for the graduating class of 2026. My advice is for parents with young children. If I’m reaching you before your kid(s’) cellphone era, excellent. If you’re a parent whose kid already has a cellphone, that’s okay. There’s still time. Here it goes:

If I could offer you only one tip for the future,

“Delay buying your child a cellphone for as long as possible”, would be it.

It's okay if your kid is bored. Dining at restaurants with small children, isn’t supposed to go smoothly.

No kid can sit still and speak at an acceptable volume when they’re in a room full of new people, stomachs growling, and new things going on all around them.

Kids cry and throw tantrums. Yours isn’t the first and won’t be the last.

Pro-tip: Buy a mini-Uno card game. The number of times a travel sized deck of cards saved my family from hungry meltdowns and excessive whining, is immense.

Play-Doh, crayons, small books, tiny toys. Pack them.

You will never look at a family where each person is staring at a device not speaking to one another with admiration and think, "Aw. What a nice family!" Uno. Buy it.

Share your cell phone. Let your social butterfly use it to connect with friends, just like we did with our land lines. 

Anything your child needs a cell phone for, can be done on a parent’s.

People aren’t meant to have the world in our pockets. We aren’t meant to be accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Remember when drama happened to us in school?

We had the luxury of escaping to our homes when the bell rang and leaving it behind for the night or weekend.

All we had to do was not answer the phone.

If you were lucky, your parents answered the phone and angerly told the punk on the other end to stop calling.

Today’s generation can’t run away or take a break, ever.

They bring it home in their pockets and have it taunting them all night and day with every buzz and ping.  

Inevitably, you will buy the phone. You’re only human and that’s just the way of it.

Set the rules now.

That cell phone is for connecting with others, only.

YouTube and games can be done on the family laptop, smart television, or game console.

Say “No!” to TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram. Period.

Have you ever heard a parent say, “I’m so glad I let my kid have social media!”?

Cell phones are small but mighty in power. Set restrictions and time limits now.

Your child does not need access to their entire contact list, 24/7.

Any conversation held after bedtime is not a conversation your child needs to have.

To no surprise, your child will find a loophole to connect with their friends, even with restrictions on.

Help curb their temptation by keeping bedrooms off limits for overnight charging.

Get a family charging station and make sure that phone is plugged in, every night.

Kids don’t need a cell phone to snuggle with at night.

Leave that for one of the 42 stuffies thrown on their bedroom floor.  

The same jolt to the brain someone with a gambling problem feels when they pull that lever, is the same jolt your baby’s brain feels when that next reel pops up. 

Don't spoon feed that electronic addiction we all struggle with. 

Don’t let those bright eyes turn dull and empty. Keep them little.

“Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth. But trust me on the sunscreen…”

The cell phone can wait.