I'll try not to take your head off here Tex, but I think you are trying to read too much into what I said in the use of the word "pride". Perhaps there is a better word I should have used than "pride" but it's the closest I could come on the fly to the concept I was trying to express.
Aside from that - what's wrong with a kid having a little pride in themselves, in their abilities, their home, their families, their backgrounds, and to a degree - their possessions?
I had things I was proud of when I was a kid? Didn't you? Was it wrong? Did it make you feel superior to others that you had this or that possession when many other kids had one too? No - it just made you feel like you "fit in" a little better.
Note I said absolutely nothing about my daughter being prideful because she thinks she's "better" than anyone else cause she has a phone. Those are your words (I also don't think you should have put 'better' in quotation marks since the word is not in my post)
(Besides - you're not really better than anyone else in the 7th grade in terms of cell-phone chic unless you have a BlackBerry, I-Phone, or whatever the latest coolest is
- & that's not what my kid has - although it does have an MP3 & camera)
Note also that I DID say she can take pride in having a cell phone school
just like most of the other kids in her grade - it's those who don't have phones who are the oddballs & she doesn't attend any kind of privileged school - just an average medium sized Texas middle school.
She takes pride in her cell phone in the same way she takes pride in her converse sneakers (not expensive - but kind of de rigueur at the moment in the world of 13 year old girls) or another clothing item.
I suggest you may not understand the pressures of a 13 y/o girl. Trying to do well at school, sports, music, etc - and at the same time wanting to just "fit-in".
I can afford it, it's not much, so why not?