The current question raging in our house is “how old do you have to be to get a cellphone?” Everyone under the age of 12 thinks their age is absolutely the right age to have one. The parental units are in complete agreement that it’s most definitely not.

For some reason, we seem to think that having a cellphone should happen around the same time the kids start driving and dating. You know, when they’re somewhere in their 30s. However, recent changes, mainly middle school, have had us rethinking our long-term plan.

Since A went to middle school, we’ve been trying to encourage a little more independence.

“Stay after school to get help from a teacher, join some extracurricular activities, go grab a soda with your friends! That small window of time after school is your own, carpe diem!” That’s what my mouth is saying.

My heart is saying, “Run home from school as fast as you can, don’t eat any after-school snacks so you don’t choke, don’t go up the stairs so you don’t trip and hurt yourself, wrap yourself in Bubble Wrap, or don’t because you shouldn’t play with plastic, and sit on the couch so nothing bad can possibly happen to you.”

My mouth has been winning, for the most part, and A’s horizons have expanded slightly.

But, I think if he had a phone with him, at least for any kind of emergency, my heart might be able to calm down a little bit.

I’ve been happy to see that A has taken the initiative and joined some clubs. Here’s the thing, though: Club schedules change. At the last minute.

So, when I swing by the school to surprise him by picking him up after Lego club, and he’s not there, I immediately assume the worst. In this day and age, what is a kid without a cellphone supposed to do?

There are no longer any pay phones in the school lobby. So, the kid without a cellphone calmly goes home after school, like he normally does every day of the week. The parent of the kid without a cellphone starts calling out the search parties and the rescue dogs.

OK, I don’t overreact that badly. Instead, I start texting all the other moms, and hope that one of them has wisely let their child have a cellphone and they are clued in as to where my child might be.

Which brings up another point: Sometime around middle school is when the parents stop running the kids’ social schedules and the kids take it on themselves.

Suddenly, the group text between moms organizing playdates is obsolete. You really don’t want to be the weirdo mom that other kids have to text to see if A can come out to play.

You also don’t want to be the creepy parent that accidentally sends the totally off-color meme that your friends would find hilarious to the wrong “Joe” in your contact list. While I do have some of my kids’ friends’ phone numbers in my phone, they’re for emergency purposes only.

I don’t think we have to look any farther than the national news headlines these days to know that adult/kid interactions don’t want to be taken out of context in any way, shape or form.

My biggest worry with my kids having phones isn’t so much the phone part of the phone, although, if my kids ever learn about the Jerky Boys, that could change.

It’s the internet part of the phone that makes me nervous.

I started trying to find a phone that could only make phone calls and text messages.

I found some lovely flip phone options, and when I showed them to A, he was horrified.

“Mom, it’s not like it’s 2003! Do you want my thumbs to fall off?” He also claimed that he would have to start using more abbreviated language like BRB and LOL and IDK, which he knows drives me crazy.

“It was your generation that started that because you had to hit every key three times just to send one letter,” he accused.

Oh, honey, no. Although I’m flattered that you think I’m that young, my generation is actually the one responsible for stretching phone cords until they weren’t coiled anymore and pinching them in the bathroom door.

I’ve been investigating limited data plans and parental controls, but I also know that A is 900 times more tech savvy than I will ever be, and if properly motivated, will be able to figure out a way around any of that.

He has been pretty responsible with his tablet, and I do get alerts every time he tries to download anything new, but the phone is just a bigger window to a world that I will have less oversight and control over.

I know I survived my childhood by making a lot of collect calls from “pick me up at the school at 5:30,” and the reality is that we live in a cellphone world now, and it’s just one more obstacle course that we’re going to have to navigate, and eventually navigate it three times.

I just don’t know if I want to start this rat race now.

So, my answer is to do what most parents would do, and leave it up to the expert to decide. I’m pretty sure the song goes, “he knows if you’ve been bad or good, or if you’re ready for a cellphone yet,” right?

We’ll just have to see if Santa leaves one under the tree.

Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.