If you are reading this, do me a favor and try to think back to your child hood. Do you remember a time when you saw something someone else had or just something in general that you wanted? Be it a doll or a new toy, or thinking more modernly, maybe your cell phone or laptop isn’t working and you want a new one. The one you eye is out of your price range. Or maybe you see something that your mom or dad says your too young to have? I am dealing with that feeling right now. Almost every one around me seems to have a face book account. I know there is an age restriction of thirteen, and I know people under thirteen, and their parents let them lie and say that they are at least thirteen. In my opinion, (now I’m speaking my mind here) I can handle a facebook account. My parents worries are that there are the mean and nasty people out there and they take kids away from their homes. The action of the child being taken means that the nasty person needs the address. They disguise them selves as children and they say something like: ” Hi my name is ________. Can we hang out today? My mom says if your mom/dad says we can play I need to come to your house. We are doing a major cleaning and my mom doesn’t want more of a mess to clean.” And so the child gives the nasty person the address of his/her house just to find out the person he/she thought was a friend, was really just an enemy. I think I have an easy and simple solution to that problem: only make friends with the people I know for real, like my mom or dad, or my mom’s best friend, my god-mother. Not someone on the computer I hang out with that I really don’t know much about until I grow up to be old enough that I don’t have to worry about total strangers.
Now my parents had a second worry. People have a tendency to use bad words such as female dog, idiot, the F word, etc. Now no offense, but I hear plenty of that kind of mouth. Sometimes when my parents are angry can’t help but just say something, and I have learned that I don’t say that kind of stuff. So right now I really don’t know why exactly they have the second worry.
Charlie, I cannot begin to express how proud I am of you. You are without a doubt more intelligent and mature than your biological years.
Clearly, there’s a slippery slope of making exceptions around age-based limits. There’s television and movie ratings, on the legal driving age, or the legal drinking age, or policies of websites and services in general. There’s minimum height requirements for amusement park rides. Some rules can be ignored, others are enforced in ways that leave us no choice.
On one hand, I certainly think you’re smart enough and mature enough to be responsible with a Facebook account. On the other hand, making an exception on this matter makes it harder to refuse to make an exception on other matters — clearly, we set the precedent that we DO make exceptions, so why not make exceptions on all matters?
Child predators — those creepy people who try to contact kids and do bad things with them — are certainly a big concern, but if we talk openly about what’s going on, we can definitely work to minimize that risk. Foul language and the kind of things that kids write is an issue, but we do know that we’ve raised you with the knowledge between right and wrong.
I think part of our hesitation is just having to face the fact that you, our “baby girl”, is now so grown up. It’s a big adjustment for us, and you’ll understand it when you have your own children.
Let’s all talk about this and I’m sure we’ll be able to meet in the middle and while we all probably won’t get exactly what we want, we’ll get closer than we are now, and hopefully that’ll be good enough.
<3 you so much,
Daddy
Thanks dad, I’m crying at the computer I’m so touched.
My darling — I, too, am so very proud of you that you are able to put your feelings so poignantly into words. You never cease to amaze me and I am overflowing with warmth for the responsible young woman you are becoming.
Love you!
I agree with Daddy, about the notion of “making exceptions”. That and the concern of child predators. Whilst, yes, the foul language and other content you may see, is also an issue, it is _very_ minor compared with the ‘exceptions’ and ‘predator’ issues.
That being said, your openness and willingness to communicate your feelings and concerns to us speaks to your developing responsibility and maturity. It helps us to see that you are, indeed, rapidly approaching a time when you can handle these things better. Perhaps I’m being naive, but I don’t necessarily feel that it’s so much a ‘growing up’ issue. We both know you’re growing up, it’s more, as I’ve said before, a concern about the other nutcases out there and their ability to manipulate people, than about your abilities and understanding.
We’re a mommy and daddy fly, concerned about our daughter wandering off into the spider’s web. We want to try our best to prepare you, and you’ve shown, by this blog entry, that you’re almost ready.
VERY proud, my darling… VERY proud
This is beautiful Charlie. It is so good that you can speak up and your mom and dad listen. It is so important in every person’s life that they can discuss issues with their parents!!
Lots of love
Kathy
YOU DON’T MENTION ME:”-(
Charlie you constantly amaze me with how well spoken and mature you are. You make excellent points, but I think as you get older you’ll understand it from your parents’ point of view more (though I don’t think it’ll be for awhile). I think part of the FB thing is there are rules for a reason. I have a FB account and quite frankly there are things I don’t think it would be appropriate for someone your age to see. Also, if you’re parents let you ignore the rules, it can lead to problems. First, if they let you violate the rules it sends a bad message, i.e., that it’s okay to lie and ignore the rules if you feel like it. Second, it sets a bad precedent in that if they let you ignore the rules for FB why not other things. I know it may seem that they’re being unreasonable because you are so mature and you are exposed to other things such as bad language, but they really are just looking out for you and trying to teach you the right values. In the meantime, try to think of all the things you do have and concentrate on that.
Just noticed I’m logged in as you since I’m on your PC, so for the record the last post was from me- Auntie Tina.