1  | 

I found this helpful Thank You! Your vote will be tallied soon!

One thing I have never quite got is putting children's name on answering machines.  I have several friends and some family whose messages play along the lines of "Rob, Lisa, and William are unable to take your call right now."  William is 6 months old, who could possibly be calling him?

It reminds me of friends who had their dog on answering machine message ("Matt, Sara and Rex aren't able to come to the phone!") before they had kids.  Brian and I would call them and bark messages instead of talking.  Of course, caller ID ruined the whole shtick because they would promptly call back and tell us to knock it off.

Back when I was a kid, it was a real adventure answering the phone, you never knew if it was your best friend, the boy you had a crush on, or your neighbor calling to report to your parents that you cut across their yard again.   Despite that, when the phone rang, we fell all over ourselves trying to race to answer it.  Kids lived on the edge, risk wise, back then.  Today the phone rings, and it's almost as if it DOESN'T.  Nobody moves.  If we are doing something else, important things like watching TV or staring out the window, we always say -- "Eh, we can check caller ID and call them back later."

In any event, I would like for our lawmakers to take some meaningful action for once and enact some sort of rules around the kids-on-the-voicemail thing.  It's painful enough with everyone's tendency to explain that the machine is picking up because they aren't home and that I should leave a message without adding in the kid's name.  At least until they are five, at which point they will probably have their own dedicated cell phone anyway.