Same, I’ve easily had phones last for 4-5 years. My husband and I both keep them til there’s something annoying enough to warrant an upgrade, be that lacking capabilities or wear-and-tear damage.
The kid then gets the option to upgrade her current hand-me-down phone with whatever we just replaced. I replaced this phone a year or two ago, I don’t expect to replace it for quite a while.
Absolutely no reason to upgrade a phone every year. I highly recommend getting the phone protected with a good case and possibly a screen protector to anyone who doesn’t do this already.
They don’t want to feel different and “other” though, which a separate bathroom would absolutely do. The kids don’t care, the kids don’t have your old school hangups. So let’s not breed new hangups, let’s let the old ones die.
As to sports, we get to decide how things are organized. Sports rules aren’t handed down from on high. We can change the sorting of genders to make it fair and inclusive. We can experiment with different ways of sorting until we find that correct balance. We don’t have to cling to the old ways just because it’s what we’re uses to.