Not really because nearly every adult has a phone with unlimited calling, and will allow you to make a call from their phone.

This isn't very compatible with also teaching children that they can't trust the majority of adults, and that every stranger is a potential danger.

> Not really because nearly every adult has a phone with unlimited calling, and will allow you to make a call from their phone.

that's not even true for adults. Why would you assume it's true for kids?

>Not really because nearly every adult has a phone with unlimited calling, and will allow you to make a call from their phone. I don't want my kids to be someplace where there are not some responsible adults around (drunk adults are not responsible)

I remember about 10 or 12 years ago, I'd answer every incoming call. Many were wrong numbers (guy who had the phone number before we was, I kid you not, some sort of wine salesman... people were wanting to order crates of wine). But I'd answer. Now, not so much. I get 15 calls a day some days, all are robots. I screen through voicemail transcription most of the time, unless I recognize the number. Blocking does not good. Numbers in my area code mean nothing... a surprising number of robot calls match my own exchange number (why? what's the point?). For 3 weeks a few months ago, one even matched my own phone number but for the last two digits being transposed, but it wouldn't leave a voicemail.

I no longer have the reasonable ability to answer strange phone numbers. If it were just mean, I'd chalk it up to some idiosyncratic neurosis and be quiet, but my own impression is that everyone else is doing the same thing. We not only tore down the old POTS network, we got rid of all the norms around it.