but i digress

well for one you’re assuming that a cell phone is a luxury. My house hasn’t had a landline since I was 14 because it was less expensive for my mom to have a cell phone. It’s still less expensive per month for my mom and I to have cell phones and internet than to have a landline and internet. Also, for a working parent to not have a cell phone is ridiculous. How else is their child supposed to get ahold of them reliably during commutes?? 

secondly, do you realize how inexpensive it actually is to get an iPhone?? I’ve had two different ones over the years (a 4 and a 5C) and they were 100% free with my contract renewal. I’m planning on getting a 6 in the fall with my rewnewal for… you guessed it 100% free. A lot of jobs have discount purchase programs for employees or even gift their employees a work phone.

You also have no right to say what somebody is allowed to spend their expendable resources on. They might have saved up for months and months to afford the phone. They might have scraped together every last penny after bills and rent and groceries, skipping a dinner with a close friend, not replacing their worn shoes, to save up for this one thing that they really wanted. Why? Because people like you make needing help a shameful thing so they might want to hide behind a symbol of wealth so they don’t have to find out which of their friends would laugh at them if they found out (which has happened to me). Or, maybe, just maybe, because absolutely everybody deserves to have nice things that make them feel good about themselves and if its a phone then so be it.

And other thing: do you know what is a really practical gift for an older parent to give their struggling adult child? A reliable cell phone. Say what you want about Apple but they’re pretty reliable (if you don’t drop them).

American Sniper (2014)