If you are a telemarketer or work for a telemarketing company, you may want to stop reading this now. Sorry, I know it is an honest job, but lately the unsolicited calls I receive at my home have reached a staggering number. Everything from winning a cruise, to interest free credit cards, to old-timer hockey associations have been on the other end of my phone.

I’ve had pushy salesmen, snappy sales ladies, rude people, and even those speaking a language I can barely understand. Because I live on the west coast, many mornings I have been awaken to the phone ringing only to answer and hear a telemarketer’s recording. With the invention of the automated system I have even been told to hold as a recording greets my hello and asks me to wait. I’ve heard the swoosh of an airplane and been told I am a winner; heard the blow of a ships horn wanting me to press a button and claim my prize. I had surveys and questionnaires asked, money requested and my address confirmed for pamphlets and literature to be sent.

As desensitized as we are to these intrusive and unwarranted phone calls, I have to say the other day I got one that has to take the cake. The lady on the phone asked to speak to a person in our house using his full baptismal name. I asked her what it was regarding and she rudely informed me it was a personal banking situation between her and the person she asked for. I had to pause for a moment because the person she asked for was my four-year-old son. Pressing her a bit as to what banking situation, she dismissed me and demanded she speak to him. Questioning her more, she exasperatedly told me he had been personally chosen to receive unlimited coverage in the event that he were to lose his job. Before I had a chance to inform her of his age, she frankly insisted if he was there, I had better put him on the phone!!!

Gladly, I complied, and passed the phone to my gregarious toddler, eating his cereal. In the most divine and innocent voice he said hello and then said his name when she asked. Seconds later he passed the phone back to me and went about his four-year-old ways. My husband and I could not help ourselves but broke out in hysterical laughter. I practically fell off my chair, my husband almost spewed out his coffee and my son didn’t know why, but began laughing as well.

I am not proud that I am still amused by it to this minute. Thinking about it still creates a slight snicker in me. It wasn’t the nicest thing I could have done, but it was harmless fun that put humor into the obnoxious telemarketing calls we receive. And although I do chuckle about the outcome, the fact that my son’s name has made it onto someone’s list is the real point of this post.

How do these companies get our names? How does a four year old get “personally picked” for life insurance? How is his name connected to my phone number; which is really the big question? I get that you could open any white pages and find my name with my number, but the only correlation my son has to this number is from forms I fill out at the doctor’s office, school, gymnastics or tee-ball. Never have I filled out a form online using my son’s baptismal name. Therefore, somehow the private and personal information about him has made onto a list and is no longer private.
The idea that a medical institution or recreational facility could be handing over the names and numbers of children is very frightening. If forms and records are somehow getting onto databases of businesses with thousands of employees, we need to be worried. And although I am not the worrying type and like to see the positive in most situations, this is one I find unable to explain and that makes me concerned.

Now more than ever we need to protect not only our own personal information, but also that of our children’s. Next time you are asked to fill out a form, only give necessary information. Avoid repeatedly filling out forms every session or new sign up time. Limit what you give out and ask where and how the information will be used. It may sound protective and defensive, but the best defense is a thought-out offense when it comes to our greatest treasure, our kids.

Standing on my soapbox,

JB