Two mothers are urging parents to unite over a smartphone-free childhood for their kids. Now their campaign has gone viral
OVER A COFFEE IN January, a seed of thought was planted in Daisy Greenwell’s mind as she listened to her friend talking about the possibility of getting her eight-year-old a smartphone.
A few days later, Daisy gave voice to that thought in an Instagram post – how she didn’t want to give her child something she knew would impact her mental health, but felt pressure to do so because everybody else was. It quickly went viral, prompting a national conversation and ‘accidental campaign that I didn’t even intend to start’, she says.
The Woman’s Hour presenter Emma Barnett shared the post and messaged Daisy to talk about her own fears for her children. Author Bryony Gordon commented, ‘I want to be part of this Daisy! My daughter will go to secondary school this year and I’m holding off giving her a phone!’ Meanwhile Carrie Johnson wrote, ‘Love this and totally agree.’
Daisy, a mother of three from Suffolk, teamed up with her friend Clare Fernyhough, a psychologist, to launch the Parents United for a Smartphone-Free Childhood movement on WhatsApp, encouraging parents to connect and agree to delay giving their child a smartphone. It quickly reached its 1,000-member limit, so they turned it into a WhatsApp community, inviting parents to start their own groups, which have sprung up all over the country. Last week, the technology secretary Michelle Donelan, who gave birth last year, told an interviewer, ‘If my child was nine, I certainly wouldn’t give him a phone. That’s my choice and every family is different.’ At the time of writing, Donelan was due to meet Esther Ghey, the mother of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey, who is pushing for age-specific phones for under-16s that don’t have access to social media apps.
‘I feel parents suddenly have permission to say, enough is enough,’ says Daisy. ‘Until now we felt like we were the only ones who felt uneasy about giving our child
