I don't know what the little girl in this Sprint ad is complaining about

She looks to be about eight years old, maybe seven, maybe nine.  I don't know- but surely, she's old enough to know that there's no point in complaining when her parents don't use their phones to film her little recital thing because their data plan is reaching it's monthly limit.

I mean, she grew up with her parents owning cell phones.  Which means, her entire life has been spent watching her parents scrolling and texting and yakking away instead of paying attention to what she was doing.  When she took her first step, it went unnoticed because Mom was checking out text no. 146 for that day.  When she wanted her dad to watch her on the slide, she had to beg because dad was checking the football scores on his iPhone.  And she's probably seen countless near-accidents from the back seat of the SUV while the driver kept glancing at the phone instead of paying attention to traffic.   My guess is that until she was four or so she thought that people just grew phones on their hands and wondered how old she had to be before hers showed up.

In short, she's spent her entire young life with the phone as a rival for her parents' time and affection- and data minutes.  Everything she's done has been an effort to win out in the struggle for Quality Time with the phone.  I'm sure she's lost out a LOT of times before now- so why does she take not being recorded while dressed as a tree as anything but par for the course?

When I was growing up, phones were attached to cords inside the house.  In the house, sometimes my parents were interrupted by calls and I had to wait to ask for something or tell them something.  Outside was the land without phones- where my parents were my parents and they kind of had to pay attention to me because there were no IMs and no football scores and no Google to ask inane questions to- there was just me, and my siblings, and Mom, and Dad.  I can't help thinking that was better.

Oh, and when we did something like this recital?  Still shots taken on Polaroids (you may run out of film, but not Data Minutes.)  Movie cameras (same thing.)  When where they shared?  During family get-togethers.  Again, I can't help thinking that was better.

Back to this little girl: You actually do have one legitimate  complaint to make to your parents, you poor thing.  They had you too late.  If you had been born 20 years earlier, you wouldn't be in this nonstop competition with a little glowing box.  Sorry.