It’s Wednesday at about 6:45 a.m. My son stumbles into my room, leans over my face and says “Mommy … it’s the first day of schoo-oool!”

I mumble something about “Yeah, I know, I know.”

He skips off to the living room saying “time to wake up!”

When I pick him up from school he’s laughing and in good spirits. “How was your day?” I ask. “Pretty good actually! My teacher is awesome! I didn’t get any math homework,” he says.

Optimism is his yearly routine on the first day of school.

This year, though, the excitement wanes way too quickly for my comfort.

The morning of the second school day he’s dragging and delaying even getting out of bed.

By the end of the second day that end-of-day enthusiasm fades into: “It was boring.”

Marla Hoffman

I desperately try to be enthusiastic for him, clinging to the childhood optimism that came so naturally to him when he was smaller.

“What did you do that was fun today?!” “Did you meet any new friends?!” “What was your favorite part?!”

“Nothing happened,” he says. “Can you hurry home because a new version of my game is coming out today and you’re going sooooo sloooowwww.”

Yeesh. I’m so annoying.

This year … this year is fifth grade. He’s one of the big kids now. At Fairview Elementary School in Auburn, that means his classroom is upstairs; he recesses with the sixth graders for crying out loud.

Less super heroes and Star Wars — more incomprehensible FNAF and Skibidi Toilet-Rizz-Sigma-Ohio. Please don’t ask me what that means. I might have just cursed you all by making you read that, for all I know. Please consult your friendly neighborhood Generation Alpha representative.

He and those awesome kids he’s gone to school with since pre-K are all growing up — so fast. If I went by personality alone, I wouldn’t recognize any of them today.

Let me explain. This summer we began testing him on having a cellphone; seeing how responsible he can be with it — both the physical item and usage. He’s at about 50/50 now, so we’re a work in progress.

So, he’s had open phone access to call his friends and arrange many friend hang-outs (he’s too big for play dates, ya know) over the past couple months. He’s had the kind of access to friends that he’s never had before. He hasn’t had a chance to miss them!

It’s hard for me to accept that, I admit. When I was in school I hadn’t seen my friends ALL summer, so when school started friendships were a good enough motivation to get my butt to school, and it lasted months! In high school, cellphones were super rare among my age group. It was either wall phones with curly cords (cordless if you were lucky) or prearranged meeting spots at agreed-upon times. Dark ages!

And up until this year, my son felt the same way — he missed his friends and really wanted to be at school for that time with them. It was something I related to!

Not now. Those days are officially over. I mean, why go to school at all?

And they are all like that. They are at the age where they are emulating the older kids — the teens and older siblings whose faces never leave screens. They NEED to be that cool too. They need the YouTube celebrities and video game-inspired characters.

While some parents allow their young kids full access to the internet and all that comes with it when they get a phone for the first time, I don’t. Yes he plays games and watches YouTube videos of other people playing games and cute kitten compilations, but I will not let him have a social media account.

Not yet. He’s not ready. But I know it’s coming eventually. And I’ll monitor it as much as I can.

I did the same with his older sister when she got a phone. Her dad and I went through her phone periodically to make sure she wasn’t getting into stuff she shouldn’t be getting into. Making sure the internet wasn’t getting to her in places in her life it was not invited.

I wish I could have monitored her longer than we were able to. Much to our chagrin, she asserted her phone independence at some point early in her teens and after that it became harder and harder.

It’ll be the same with my son. We learned some things from dealing with his sister, so I think we, as parents, will handle it better this time.

I feel ready for it in some ways because of that. But on the other hand, he’s the baby. How are we at this time already!? And I know … I’m the parent and I control whether he has a phone or doesn’t. Of course. But remember, as parents, we are now in a culture where we must acknowledge that this is where we’re at as a society, and it’s not changing any time soon.

It is this generation’s big cultural shift, and we’d be foolish to not teach them the correct way to use and respect these gadgets while they are still pretty young.

I mean, my generation’s big cultural shift was grunge music, counter-culture and the rise of the computer age. Our parents didn’t like it either, but we sure as hell embraced it whether they were ready for it or not.

It is the duty of young people to take on the stuff that previous generations haven’t yet, and to dive head first into the future. It is the adults’ job to teach them to take caution and to not dive too deep, too quickly.

In the case of putting phones in the hands of children, it starts with unprecedented access to friends, the internet, bussin’ new drip and yeets on TikTok. No cap.

As scary and confusing as all that is for, like, everyone, I know I need to listen, understand and engage with my kid so that we continue to have those exciting first days of school while we still got ’em.

One year it’s “I’m excited for school!” and the next it’s “Leave me alone I’m gaming.” How can parents and school possibly compete with silly names and jump scares?

I’m lucky though: at least he doesn’t call me boring … at least not yet.

Marla Hoffman is the nighttime managing editor for the Sun Journal and can be reached at mhoffman@sunjournal.com.