Mom says her 'phoneless 11-year-old' was 'lost in Manhattan and survived'
Micaéla Birmingham wrote the buzzed-about piece.
A mother is sparking a debate on tweens and smartphone usage after she revealed in an article that her child was lost in New York City without a device on-hand.
Micaéla Birmingham, an Emmy Award-winning writer-director and executive producer at "Scary Mommy," wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times titled, "My Phoneless 11-Year-Old Was Lost in Manhattan and Survived."
In the buzzed-about story published Wednesday, Birmingham details how her eldest daughter and the babysitter wound up at different Starbucks locations.
"I got a text from the sitter: "I’ve been in Starbucks for 30 minutes and I don’t see her," Birmingham wrote. "My heart started to race. My perfect little plan had just blown up into an epic fail. Where could she be? It’s dark. She has no phone. So much for my high and mighty plan to swim against the smartphone tide."
She went on, "Now she’s unreachable. Alone. In New York City. It’s dark. Damn you, Netflix true-crime specials, for putting visions in my head. Also, damn you, Liam Neeson, for those 'Taken' movies."
Birmingham of Brooklyn, told "GMA" that both her 10 and 11-year-old daughters do not own smartphones.
She and other class parents had banned together, making a pact that they wouldn't allow their kids to have them until they felt it was the right time.
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