Christmas Trolling My Child (Out of Love and Teaching Lessons)

All my nine-year-old wanted for Christmas was a fixed phone. She got it, but...

Photo by Andrey K on Unsplash

Back in December, I published a piece with this headline: “My Daughter Broke Her Phone. Should I Repair It?” The tl;dr was simple: my nine-year-old’s hand-me-down phone, which does not actually have the ability to make phone calls because the cellular part is turned off and it mostly works as a mini tablet, broke after a final doomed fall. She understood the consequences of the phone breaking, but when Christmas came around, she knew what was at the top of her list: a fixed phone.

This request showed up in her letter to Santa. She would ask us, too.

“If Santa doesn’t bring me a fixed phone, will Mom and Dad?”

I’d chuckle, look her in the eyes, and shrug. “We won’t know until Christmas, kiddo.”

She is also old enough to start seeing through deception. I’m not sure we’ll be doing Santa with her next year, though I think that depends on whether she decides it’s time to ditch Santa. (I think she’ll eventually confess to “knowing” and be excited to join Mom and Dad as they stay up late and wrap the last selection of presents and secrets.)

After I had the phone fixed, I turned it on. My plan was to make sure the phone was charged and ready to go. The problem? My daughter often changed the PIN to unlock her phone as an act of whimsy. Because the phone had been power cycled as part of the repair, I couldn’t use the parental controls to force the phone to unlock itself.

So, uh, I asked my nine-year-old in the most unconvincing way possible, “Hey, do you remember what your PIN was for your phone? I need it for…uh, something related to your Chromebook.” She was very confused but did use my phone to try and summon a memory of her phone’s PIN. It did not work. Several dozen attempts later, including some of my own guesses, the phone was locking me out for minutes at a time. I gave up, and hoped my daughter would remember the code when she finally held the thing.

Because I figured my daughter would anticipate the fixed phone being her main gift, I wanted to make the process of opening the present a little more fun. One last journey toward the glowing screen. I could pull the trick of burying it in a sea of other boxes, but a more sinister idea present itself that, in a stroke of irony, was her own idea.

Last summer, I pulled the trigger on a 3D printer—Bambu Lab’s A1—when it was on sale. I’d grown jealous of a neighbor friend who was constantly printing little cute (and often useful) objects. I’d also grown tired of my children asking to buy little creatures at stores, when it was clear they were 3D prints from someone’s room. (I cannot recommend the purchase more highly. It’s my favorite purchase in years.)

One of the 3D printer’s main uses these days is spitting out objects for dolls. Lockers. Beds. Phones. Eventually, I gave my nine-year-old access to the app that powers the 3D printer so she could scroll through the database of models. That’s when she came across what I can only describe as the box from Dune—but for Christmas presents.

The community calls these “annoying gift boxes.” The idea is that you cannot access the present without not-so-patiently removing an alarming number of screws. There are versions of these “annoying gift boxes” with more than 100 screws to be removed!

My daughter thought a gift card-sized one would be funny for her cousin—and she was right. It was funny when her cousin tried (and failed) to access some $20 bills stuffed inside. (He eventually handed the box to me and I did the screws for him.)

One mistake I’ve made a few times with printing things is failing to look at the “preview” before hitting print. I have, by accident, printed objects much smaller than I expected and some objects much bigger than I expected. When I decided to print an annoying gift box for my daughter’s phone, this ended up in the, uh, latter category.

It prompted a “holy shit” when I woke up.

Oops? That thing is huge! It feels even bigger in real life, too.

But the look on her face when Christmas morning rolled around was priceless, a combination of excitement and “Really, Dad?” But the kind of “Really, Dad?” that is actually a secret smile. I mean, this is one of the same children who knew that I didn’t like Crocs, so they purposely bought me a pair for Christmas last year. This is a family that is okay with trolling one another out of love. This would follow such a tradition.

We allowed her to take out a handful of screws during every “round” of opening presents. By the time we’d reached the end, she’d obviously put together what was hiding inside, but she was thrilled in the way that my wife and I had been hoping for.

Oh, and no, she did not remember what the PIN was for the phone. (We wiped it and started from scratch, but all her photos were backed up, so she didn’t really care.)

She learned a lesson. We felt like good parents. She got her phone back. Win win win?

How were your holidays? Any fun stories with your kids or kids you were around?

Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.

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Also:

• The final nail in the coffin for guessing if the phone was the present was her, apparently, noticing a phone case had disappeared from a drawer. Clever girl!

• I know I’ve beaten this drum before, but Google’s Family Link app is so much better than Apple’s approach. Some of that is purely because it’s a separate app.

• I didn’t realize you “age out” of most Google parental controls at 13. That feels a little young to me, but I guess for some kids that means they’re in high school? Is there where people then move onto app services like Life 360? Ideas for the future.