Parenting Woe!

My daughter had her Santa-wish fulfilled this past Christmas. She got an I-pod touch. She's ten. We talked long and hard about why she needed it. As a family we shared an I-pad and a desktop computer. She was adamant about wanting her own tech space.  She likes listening to audiobooks. Many kids listen to music and she will play an audiobook in her room instead as backnoise. She will even listen to a book over and over after she's finished reading and listening to the book. She has a huge personal library so access to books isn't the issue. For this and other reasons, she got one.

I thought an I-pod would allow her to fully utilize our library's phenomenal virtual resources including audiobooks, magazines, and the e-books. She has. Right now she is reading her I-pod in bed. I thought an I-pod would allow her to maintain a relationship with her cousins in New Zealand and other family members. It has. She Facetimes. She texts. The irony is that she can't text me due to my outdated  phone. She uses all the the web-enabled apps wherever there is free wifi. She is responsible. What I  did not anticipate was how this small tool would push her a little more to independence pushing the tech middle man, the mediator, me out.