What the heck is happening with the kids of today? Yesterday, I had more than one parent tell me about their teenage girl posting naked selfies and having sex and/or trading sexual favors for drugs.
WHAT THE HECK?!? Do they not know the Internet is FOREVER? Have they not read a single paper – okay, of course they haven’t. Have they not read a single article written for their short attention span brains with GIF memes things that shows them that the Internet is forever? Have they not heard about teachers who stripped or did porn in college that are now losing their jobs because their students are finding the pictures? Or teachers who are getting caught having sex with their students and convicted because the proof is in the text messages? Or teens that are killing themselves because a picture from a drunken party has made it online? Have they not seen a single picture of what a sexually transmitted disease looks like when it mutates and pusses and gets all ‘Worst case of...’ Have they? I can find these things just by reading the Daily Mail or Facebook. WHY IS COMMON SENSE SKIPPING THIS GENERATION? Thank whomever you believe in that the Internet did not exist when we were kids. When my friends and I drank that bottle of tequila and I passed out in the circles on the way home and Kate kept trying to pull me off the street by my belt loops. The next day, with all my belt loops broken on my favorite jeans and my hips and thighs the color of eggplant, I would have DIED to see a picture of me floating around school. School was hard enough to get through with my semi-Afro and inability to form sentences in front of boys. A picture of me looking a fool would not have helped me make it out of there alive. And having sex? Or trading sexual favors for pot? Heck, doing pot? At thirteen? THIRTEEN!!! WHAT IN THE HECK? At thirteen I was all braces and bushy Afro hair and body odor and new boobs and just an awkward hot mess. The closest I got to “having sex” was the one time that boy I had a crush on but couldn’t speak to – who, by the way, was in love with my best friend - held my hand at the amusement park on the scary ride I went on with him instead of her because she was too scared. If it weren’t for the Drop Zone, I wouldn’t have gotten to - what base is holding the sweaty hand of your best friends boyfriend on a scary ride? Hum? Perhaps the bench on the sidelines near the baseball park? I got to that base! The worst thing is that she was “in like” with him too – but only AFTER she found out I was “in like” with him. Then she went out with him and kissed him and did whatever you do at thirteen with a boy that isn’t trading sexual favors for pot and posting evidence on the Internet. My best friend then wasn’t very nice. She made me sit and watch them make out once. Put her back against the door and made out with him and wouldn’t let me leave the room. Talk about awkward. Perhaps I’ll bring that up with him on Facebook… kidding. Anyway, aside from watching them kiss, I knew no one in middle school who was having “the sex” or doing “the drugs.” (You have to say those things in a hushed whisper while looking around to make sure no one is listening. I still say them that way.) Okay, sure there was that rumor that ‘that girl’ was pregnant and sure, some of the cool kids were likely drinking but sex and drugs were just these abstract concepts that we read about in the pamphlets they gave us as warnings in school. They were the reality when we were “older” but now, they were not part of our everyday life. And when we eventually did the stupid things they warned us about, there wouldn’t be pictures on the Internet haunting us FOREVER. I’m not sure what I’m trying to say here… Hide your daughters until they have brains again, until their need to fit in with the cool crowd passes. Lock your sons up until that rush of hormones becomes less of a torrential river and more of a faucet you can turn off. Hide all the electronic devices – after they show you how to use them – and never let them get on Facebook. It is bad out there and the children – hopefully not your children - are stupid at an earlier age. And they are posting proof of their stupidity on the Internet where it will be FOREVER… I am SO glad I just have a dog.
2 Comments
Bear
2/19/2014 03:37:16 am
Great post, ej. I share your concern, not only about youngsters making irrevocable decisions before the age of discernment, but also for the reality of what peer pressure means these days. We all know the urge to brag about our exploits to get validation and raise status, but these days it's as if young people feel like their emerging identities don't even exist until words and -- oh Lordy -- photos are published to the forever Internet.
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Bear
2/19/2014 03:42:46 am
... may every awkward hot mess in coming times be simply no more than a dinner party that goes wrong....and then you'll have your gorgeous kitchen as consolation!
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AuthorMy name is ej. I'm a girl. I say that because with the short hair and the short initials, folks aren't always sure. More brilliant insights to who I am in About me Archives
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