Juice Boxes and JPEGS.
February 14th, 2007 by Kevin
I do not advocate children using the internet at all, ever; unless perhaps it is for a school project and is done under extremely close and ridiculously paranoid adult supervision.
There will be plenty of time for children to find porn, surf pro-ana sites, and post come-hither photos that will attract pedophiles when they’re teenagers.
Kids plus internet equals disaster as far as I’m concerned, given the amount of careless parents who plunk their kids down in front of the box as if it’s the TV or the Playstation (oh great babysitters and educators of our time) and walk away, neither knowing nor caring whether their little Dakota or Brittney is giving out their street address to some chronic masturbator with male pattern baldness and a bowie knife.
The kid next door, whom I shall call Fargo, recently arrived at my house and saw me checking my e-mail.
“Hey,” he said. “You ever go on MySpace?”
“Sometimes,” I warily replied, although I haven’t checked my MySpace account in quite some time, now that I think about it.
“I love MySpace!” he gushed. “I go on there every night and talk to people for hours and hours! It’s great! I meet lots of people!!”
The child is eight, folks. He is eight years old. While I give him props for knowing how to type, he has No Fucking Business being anywhere near MyWhore.
And let’s be real, here. If you’re on MySpace, you’re either doing some internet whoring (real-life or just attention whoring), you’re stalking an ex, or you’re just insanely bored.
I don’t think very many people are insanely bored. I am, but I don’t work.
I also may have attention-whored myself out on MySpace. This also stems from being bored. Validate my existence! Add yourself to my friends list!
Sad, ain’t it?
Anyway, there is no reason for an eight-year-old to be there. None.
I almost asked Fargo whether or not he had a picture uploaded into the computer, but I really didn’t want to know the answer.
The kid is lost. He’s the youngest of five by about twelve years. He is at my house more often than not, and I get the impression from his frequent lack of coat, gloves, and shoes (we have at least eight fucking inches of snow on the ground) that no one is really watching what the hell he does. Sometimes he comes over in his pajamas. Sometimes he’s wearing bedroom slippers.
He’s extremely well-mannered, about as well-mannered a kid as I’ve ever seen, but Jesus salad-spinning Christ, does anyone care what this kid does?
I hate to be Ms. Judgy-Ass Judgmental up on Judgment Mountain, because you never know what’s going on behind closed doors, but fuck.
If I had a teenager - which I thankfully do not and will not for five more years - and hopefully by then the government will have made tranquilizer darts and involuntary sterilization legal - I wouldn’t want them on MySpace.
I’m grounded in reality enough to know that I’d have a hell of a time trying to stop them, but I damn sure wouldn’t let it happen in my house unless it was right in front of my face and I saw the profile and friends list and it was all completely innocuous and chocolate began to rain from the sky.
My kid, though? My eight-year-old, who, last time I checked, I am still the boss of? Hell no. I’d let him watch The Best Of Ron Jeremy first.
Some of the shit I see out here in cyberspace still blows my mind due to its level of evil, prejudice, violence, callousness, or general fucked-up-ness; and I am a fairly jaded, hard-to-shock individual. Some of the people I have run across online have deeply frightened me. Some of the spam I get disgusts me.
How in the hell could anyone possibly expect an eight-year-old to make heads or tails of what or who they might come across?
Kids grow up like lightning. You want them to grow up. You want them to take those first steps, crap on the toilet, eat unassisted, dress themselves, do their math, and brush their teeth. You encourage them. You push them.
“Look at the big boy!” “You’re such a big girl!”
Soon you realize, though, that there’s a big difference between encouraging them to grow and shoving them forward into a big, fucked-up world that they are completely unprepared for and know nothing about.
Hell, I’m thirty-three and I still feel like I’m completely unprepared and know absolutely nothing about this place.
Happy Wednesday.
golfwidow wrote on 02/14/07 at 2:03 pm :
I’m scared of the grown ups. Why isn’t he?
trancejen wrote on 02/14/07 at 2:09 pm :
I have no fucking idea.
Cosmic wrote on 02/14/07 at 4:00 pm :
Have you considered talking to his mom? Is it possible she doesn’t know he’s in there?
Anne wrote on 02/14/07 at 4:04 pm :
My eleven yr old can’t use anything online unless the hub or I know where and why. I cannot imagine just leaving her to go where and whenever she wants! Hell, the ‘puter is in the living room, right where all and sundry can see what’s on the screen, just for that reason.
And GW and Cosmic’s questions are some of my questions for other parents.
Maggie wrote on 02/15/07 at 7:34 am :
This was interesting to read! I’m a student, single, and childless, so child-rearing stuff is just theoretical to me. More often than not I just react to the awful kids I see around me, rather than thinking about what might have made them such a pain. I hadn’t really thought much about the internet– but I think you’re right! Parents often make a stink about how they don’t have to be strict disciplinarians because they have “good kids.” Probably true, in many cases (I like to think I was a good kid!). The internet is way more dangerous than people like to think, and so are kids, frankly. Anyway, thought provoking entry!
Maggie wrote on 02/15/07 at 7:37 am :
**well, kids are more susceptible to to danger, anyway. as long as they’re still smaller than I am, they can only be so dangerous.
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It’s ok kid…none of us know what the hell we’re doing either…
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