My soon-to-be 15-year-old son has been talking to me nonstop from the passenger seat. This chatty guy is very different than the sullen boy who often sits there folded over in the neck-bent smartphone pose. I reach for a can of sparkling water and take a grapefruity sip, noticing relief in my heart. Mr. Chatterbox over there is surprising me by making eye contact. He’s turning his adorable boy-almost-man face toward me and initiating engagement. He’s making numerous bids for connection, and I am here for it!

Okay, yes, maybe the topic is absolutely mind-numbing: the mechanical improvements he’s made on his e-bike. But I don’t care, and you’d never know that by seeing me nod like a silly bobblehead. I’m giving him my full attention. I’m soaking up the eye contact as much as a mom can while driving. As I turn the steering wheel to the left, an expansive water view appears from around the bend, and we both gasp. The smell of saltwater rushes in through the open windows.

“Whoa, that’s so cool,” he says.

“Yeah, gorgeous,” I respond.

I take note. We pass this view every day, and this is the first time he’s ever commented. We’re sharing a peak experience, even if it’s an itty-bitty one. He’s so present. We’re not in our usual mother-son battle of me calling his name two or three times from the driver’s seat because he’s got AirPods blocking his ears.

“Can you please put your phone down?” I’d ask with annoyance.

He’d look up sullen and tired, then ask, “Why?”

“Because I want to connect with you. I miss you,” I’d say, speaking honestly from the heart of a divorced mom who doesn’t get to see her kids for days at a time.

He’d sigh and roll his eyes, then grumble, “In a minute.”

I’ve been through this before with his older sister, so the irony isn’t lost on me. It’s a type of burden that my kids carry, to be loved so much by me. I know it must be hard and inconvenient for me to want to know them.

As toddlers and young children, all they want is to be seen. Mama, watch this! For years, this goes on. They want us to witness their every move and latest developmental leap. Then, it suddenly stops. They want us only at certain times. Those times are unpredictable, and we jump at the opportunity. As moms in our forties and fifties, we say things like, “She grabbed my hand for a minute!” or “He sat next to me and told me about the game!” or “They watched a movie with me!” We are moms who joyfully, delightfully take crumbs and make a meal out of them. Because we know it’s developmentally appropriate for them to individuate, to leave us, forever.

But my son hasn’t left yet, and I’m keenly aware of the exact amount of time I have remaining with him under my roof: three years, ten months, and thirteen days (but divorced parents must divide that number in half.) Anyway, it’s been six minutes since the one minute when he said he’d put the phone down.

“It’s been a minute, babe,” I’d say softly, “I want to ask you a question.”

“WHA-AAT?” he’d say in that Napoleoan Dynamite voice that teen boys use with their parents, that I can’t help but nearly laugh at.

The conversation would go nowhere. He’d be frustrated and angry that I’m even attempting it. I’d dance through all the topics. I’d do jazz hands and ask about food or meals. Nope. I’d do a little tap routine about his interests. Let’s talk sports. Uh-uh. He’d check his phone three times after every time it buzzed in his hand. I’d stop trying and turn on music. It’s not worth the fight.

That was a week ago, and today he’s a completely different kid. He’s sharing his deepest thoughts with me about e-bikes with no end in sight.

What happened?

He was a total dickhead last week, and I took his phone away. That’s what happened. His behavior was atypical of a teenage boy picking on his little sister, but it was in front of my mom, during her farewell dinner, and he was being relentless. As we tried to order cheese steaks and Caesar salad, he was viciously teasing, and Little Sister fought back with a vengeance. Sibling rivalry is not new to me. I have three kids. It can be constant at times, but the nature of this was cruel.

The problem is that I lost my shit, too. I was that parent in the restaurant, flapping my hands, standing up at the table, making threats and demands to make them stop, and they basically laughed in my face. When I told my son to hand over his phone, he did it willingly, like, “What else you got, Lady?” The power struggle was on, and I told them exactly how it was going to go down.

After the server left our table with the final check, I watched my kids slurp the last of their root beer and Shirley Temple. Then took a deep breath, sat up straight, and said, “Hey, can you hear me? They both moped out a “Yes,” and I said, “We can turn this into a power struggle, and the two of you will win, for now. You’ll embarrass me by being louder and more obnoxious in public. We’ll be forced to leave for the comfort of the other diners, but once we get home. I call the shots. I’m the adult, and frankly, I control your lives. You’re dependent on me. You need me. If you want any privileges like phones, your own money, or freedom to spend time with friends and do sports, I make those decisions. And your dad will back me up. Do you want to call him now to check?”

Single parenting is impossible without the help of a supportive co-parent, and their dad and I have this down to a science. Whatever the other parent says or did is agreed upon in front of the kids (behind the scenes, we have our own discussions about it.)

My kids looked at me, defeated, but sorry. My mom was quiet, but I could tell she was rooting for me. The meal felt ruined, and we all left the restaurant feeling exhausted. I knew most of this was because they needed more sleep. The rules that govern toddlers absolutely still apply to teenagers. I also knew taking his phone away was an amateur move. It didn’t really ever change anything.

The thing is, he never asked for it back.

There were no pleading texts or bargaining calls from his dad’s phone about how he could earn it back with goal-oriented fake apologies. I did receive one sneaky text from him using his sister’s iPad, asking me to call a friend’s mom to see if they could meet up at the new bike park. Three full days passed while he was at his dad’s house, and I wondered what alternative universe this was. What was filling the void? Another device?

Now, I’m back in the car side-by-side with my boy child, and he’s a friggin’ delight. He’s being his true self. This is the guy I get on the way home from a week of device-free summer camp; the one unencumbered by the heavy weight of smartphone technology. He’s so involved with our conversation, which has turned from his e-bike to a squirrel he’s been feeding from his dad’s porch. He’s literally connecting with nature in ways that he would only do to film it with his phone.

He’s not even getting annoyed that I’m asking personal questions like, “Wow, this feels so different to me right now. You’re so talkative. I love it. How do you feel?”

“Mom, I feel different, too. I’ve felt a lot happier this week.”

“Why do you think that is?”

He thinks before he speaks and says, “Because I don’t feel guilty for all the time I spend on my phone.”

“But you must still be using your laptop a lot. What’s the difference?”

“Because I can’t lie down and scroll for hours on my bed or on the couch. After I look something up, I leave my desk because it’s uncomfortable to sit up in a chair.”

Hearing him say he was happier for a few days, without his phone, helped me get over my fear that I’d thrown him to the wolves. He was my first child with a personal device at an early age. He’s my guinea pig, and I don’t know the lasting effects. One thing I do know is that Apple devices are the worst for kids. They don’t allow the removal of the most problematic aspects: web browsers and YouTube. The screen time controls are total bullshit. The kids always find a workaround. His happiness is not something I will let scrolling take away. I’ve stopped the habit for myself, and that makes it easier to have meaningful conversations with him. He knows I want his phone to be a tool that is used for texting with friends, phone calls, and music. He knows I’m fine with him laughing with a reel once in a while, with limits. He’s on board with that.

Wish me luck. I’m finally going up against smartphone technology, so I get a say in parenting my kid. I don’t know what’s next, but it feels a little too similar to when parents were going up against the cigarette companies. For more than 50 years, cigarette manufacturers were allowed to target children. That’s customer for life. Get them hooked early. The smoke coming out of my kids’ ears when I ask them to put down their devices smells just as bad.

I’ve got limited time left with my boy smiling in my passenger seat, and I want it all.