My wife and I are terrible parents, uncaring and insensitive creeps. At least that's what you'd believe if you asked our three youngest children, our 14-year-old son and twin 12-year-old daughters.

It's not that we neglect to feed them or beat them. (Well, sometimes the fridge gets kind of bare, but there's always backup Ramen noodles, and as for beatings, I may threaten that all the time, but never follow through.) No, it's that, it's … and please don't report us to the police … we've refused to get them cell phones.

Our son, in particular, points out at each and every available opportunity that he's the only kid in the 8th grade who doesn't have his own cell. Wherever he goes, his friends are standing around with cells glued to their ears, or they're texting away, their pubescent thumbs flying across the keys.

He usually starts the argument by insisting that he's mature enough to handle the responsibility of a cell phone. We usually don't even have to respond to that one. Just a few minutes of staring at him, giving him some time to think about all the expensive stuff he's either broken or lost, and he gives up that argument and switches gears.

Next, he point out that his friends' parents obviously care about their kids more than we do. They want them to have cell phones in case an emergency comes up. What would he do, he asked us the other day, if some crisis came up and he was the only kid in the group who couldn't call home? We stared at him.

"You're with 15 kids all holding cell phones," my wife said. "Borrow one for a minute!" It's a logical answer, but not one that satisfies our son.

Our 14-year-old is correct in observing that he's the last one in his grade to go wireless. But my wife and I continue to hold out for as long as possible. Our older sons, both in college, didn't get cell phones till they were seniors in high school, but the trend these days seems to be giving kids more and more trappings of adulthood while they're still interested in cartoons. Soon we'll have toddlers with PDAs.

As my wife points out, kids don't call anybody anyway. They text and text and text, each little one line "lol" or "rofl" message costing someone (their parents) yet another dime. Sometimes, kids will stand around in groups endlessly texting messages to friends who are just a few feet away. We're growing a whole generation of kids who won't be able to carry on conversations or interact with peers. Their only real skill will be typing 50 words per minute on a keyboard the size of a Zippo lighter.

We also know that once our kids get on our cell phone plan, we'll never get them off. Our oldest son is now 21, old enough to vote, to get married, to gamble, even to drink. He still walks around with a cell bought and paid for by Mom and Dad. I have this fear I'll be in a retirement home someday, and my gray-haired, bifocaled son will stop by to visit me, bring me chocolates and ask me to increase his monthly allotment of texts.

Besides, during the day, kids are in school, a place where they're not supposed to use phones at all, and the rest of the time they're at home, where they can get a hold of us by calling out from the couch. (Something they do all the time, making me rethink that whole beating thing.)

Our daughters don't argue with us, but only because they're a little more crafty. Last month, we passed a cell phone kiosk at the mall where they were handing out little brochures the size and shape of cell phones. The brochures had life-size pictures of cell phones on the front, and were meant to show all the features available on the latest model, but my daughters use them as visual aids in pointing out how mistreated they are.

At least once a day, they'll pull out their little cardboard cell phones, press a few fake buttons, then hold it to their ears.

"Sorry," they say into the "phone." "I can't talk right now because my parents are too cheap to get me a real phone. Bye now!"

At that point they better yank 'em out hope they reach a real "9-1-1", because at that point, I'm considering revisiting that beating policy.

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