In their bedroom, Mark and June spoke about Ty's request. "The idea that Ty would just 'get' the phone himself, if we approved it, really caught me by surprise," Mark said.
"Me too," June said, "even though we saw him 'get' that game console. But what I think is more important here is the fact that he asked us for permission, rather than just doing it."
"I hadn't thought about that, but you're right," Mark replied. "How much of that do you suppose is his wanting things to be 'normal', and how much is trying to allay our fears?"
"It's clearly both," June answered. "But even if he has those ulterior motives, I think we should take his request at face value."
"Oh, I was willing to concede on the phone just about instantly," Mark explained, "but I delayed a bit because I didn't want him to believe I'm just caving in out of fear, even though I do still have that. I think we should let him have a cell phone, but we need to decide whether we'll buy the phone normally, or let him just 'get' it himself. And if we buy it, should we make him work in some way to pay it off?"
"Ty probably knows that we didn't make Dustin work for his cell phone, so it might make him mad if we do that to him," June reasoned. "Not to mention that it would clearly be unfair. Either we should buy it, no strings attached, or let him 'get' it himself."
"I'm not sure about buying vs. letting him 'get' it," Mark said. "Your point about fairness suggests that we should buy it."
"Why don't we tell Ty that we're willing to buy it for him, but that he can get it his own way if he prefers," June said. "For example, he might want a nicer phone than we got Dustin, but if we buy it we should get him something similar, out of fairness."
"OK, that seems like an good plan," Mark said. "Let's tell him tomorrow."
"Agreed," June said. "On a related note, do you think we should ask him to 'get' other things for us? Since he brought the subject up, it must have crossed his mind that we could ask him to do that."
Mark asked, "What kind of 'other things'?"
"Well, for a start, what if we asked him to use his method to get groceries, instead of me buying them at the store. Or to put gas in our cars. Just mundane stuff like that. I'm not suggesting that we ask him to do anything extravagent."
"The possibility is interesting." Mark mused, "But would he find it annoying if we asked him for things like that?"
"I think there's only one way to find out," June said, "but I'm not going to ask him unless you're on board with it, and I think we should plan our first request carefully."
"Rather than asking him to 'get' our groceries for your typical shopping, what if you 'forgot' an item, and asked Ty to just help out with something small." Mark said. "At least at first."
"That sounds good," said June. "Shall I do that later this week?"
"Sure," said Mark.