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Last week a mom blogger wrote a blog that had the blogosphere all higgledy piggeldy over her post. The post, FYI (if you’re a teenaged girl), was an open letter to the girls on Facebook etc. letting them know if they are going to post suggestive photos her sons can’t be friends with them, because they will never be able to un-see these pics.. The problem is she used shirtless pictures of her boys in the post and a blog type atomic bomb went off. I am paraphrasing, so don’t get all up in my grill.
Half the blogosphere was on her side. Half was mad at her saying she was slut shaming and a hypocrite. People went crazy leaving comments and fighting on forums. Friendships shattered and at the end of the day I still had to do the laundry. I thought for sure the world would stop spinning for at least a little bit?
The entire thing reminded me of the Donkey Shows in Mexico. You know, when a woman has sex with a donkey on stage. Many years ago, I was paid to travel around the country with former cast members of the Real World and hold casting sessions at colleges. Our journey took us to El Paso, Texas, which took us over the border into Juarez, Mexico to look around.
As we were wandering around Juarez, a man came up to our group and asked us, “Do you want to come and see the donkey show?” We had collectively hit a line in the sand. Did we in fact want to go see a woman and a donkey having sex? The curiosity factor was pretty high. How many times do you get to see an urban legend come to life? But then again, once you see something like that, it can’t be unseen.
The idea of the donkey show seemed “funny” as we strolled the “beautiful” streets of Juarez, but the reality of seeing something like a donkey and a woman having sexual intercourse on a stage, too much to handle.
Kind of like the Internet. There is literally something for everybody out there and all you have to do is click on a button to see it. No passport or cover charge needed.
That simple click has become the “truth or dare” of the new age. Instead of making out with the pretty red headed girl in the closet, you are instantly taken to places and things that you can’t un-see.
A few years ago my oldest was Googling “horses.” What she ended up seeing were men with horse like endowments. It only takes a few clicks to take you down a back alley in Juarez.
Do you click it, or don’t you click it? That is the question. Links are everywhere and exposed to everyone. Here’s a test, this is a link to the most horrific thing I have ever seen on the Internet. Click here to see what my worst fear is, the thing that twists my stomach and invades my dreams. Click here and you can see my worst nightmare.
I’ll wait here.
While we are waiting for those who did click to come back, I used to think “Donkey” from Shrek was the luckiest donkey in the world, but the donkey in the donkey show has to be the happiest donkey in Mexico, if not the world. While other donkeys are working in fields and pulling carts, this donkey gets “it” twice a day. Not bad for a dude or a donkey.
Ok, you’re back. If you did click then you now can’t un-see the horror that scrapes the inside of my mind.
For those of you who didn’t click on the link, good for you. You are an adult (according to Google Analytics) and you have the ability to understand what may be right or wrong. Many kids don’t understand just how terrifying the internet can be and happily click away until they are deep into an awful rabbits hole of things they may not truly understand or forget.
Does your kid “need” a smart phone or tablet? For the most part no. Do they “need” their electronics alone in their room? More than likely they do not. Kids need to feel safe, protected and given the opportunity to grow. Not Instagram.
I met a woman with a fifteen-year-old son. She was telling me how she posted a baby picture of him on his Facebook page. The son got so mad he reported it as porn and Facebook blocked his mother from seeing the sons page. Her response, “What can you do?”
“A lot” was my response. If that were my kid, he would no longer be on Facebook or anything else for a very long time.
I have the passwords to child #1’s accounts and she knows we look at her texts, IM’s etc. There are rules in place and if she breaks them, there are consequences. A crazy thing called communicating with your children, openly and honestly can save a ton of headaches and mean comments on your blog down the road.
There is no sure fire formula to parenting. Every situation is different. Right or wrong depends on so many different variables we can fight over it until Eminem gets media training (Google him on ESPN, it’s epic), but it’s not going to change.
The one thing that stands universal is common sense. If you don’t want your kids to see the donkey show, don’t give them the opportunity. Social media is not a right, it’s a privilege.
One last chance to see what freaks me out……Click here.
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