ciroccoj | TC and Privacy (Reply)

Damn, is all I have to say re.

tobiascharity's "online stuff" situation.

No, OK, that's not all I have to say.

Thank god my own mother, whatever minor disagreements we had re. the myriad ways I wasted my time as a teenager, never went wingy on me. Thank god my father never lived with me, because he so would've gone wingy on me and I probably would've been banished to a nunnery or military school. Not because he believed in religion or the military, but because they'd be able to "handle" me by crushing the spirit out of me.
Getting extremely disturbing flashbacks to a younger relative's internet woes, and it's making me a little scared, frankly. S. was about 14 when we realized that her own parents were going mental on her and cracking down on everything, forbidding her from doing even the most harmless things, in an effort to keep her safe. And it was starting to backfire in rather frightening ways. Like, her mother insisted on reading all her internet correspondence, with caused the rather predictable reaction of S. getting a secret e-mail address and simply doing everything she wanted to do online behind her mother's back.

Bad, bad, bad idea. S. didn't have the street smarts God gave a billy goat. We (those older relatives who hadn't destroyed S's trust in us) found out she was online (thank GOD!) and were able to give her safety tips and at least prevent her from meeting other really fun 14-year old girls online and arranging to meet them in deserted parking lots and never being seen or heard from again.

I know you're smarter than that, TC, and I really hope you have somebody to talk to that you can actually trust. And it really, really sucks that it sounds like trust is being betrayed all around you, not just wrt internet stuff, but regular life as well.
I'm also getting a recurring playback of the time I was a volunteer at the Queen's Sexual Health Resource Centre and got a call from a woman who asked me what I would tell a 14-year old girl who came in to ask about birth control. I braced myself for winginess but calmly explained exactly what I would talk to her about: birth control, disease prevention, responsible sexuality, etc.

Long silence. Then the woman says, "OK. Good. That's, that's good. Because I'm sending my daughter to see you today. She's... she's told me she's gonna go all the way with her boyfriend, so... I'm sending her over to you."

I know my mouth dropped open, and I had to pause for a minute before I said, "That's... uh, that's good. We're open until 5." Long silence, then I finally blurted out, "It's good that she talked to you."

"Yeah." (Mom did not sound happy at all, by the way.) "Yeah. I really really wish she wasn't going to... you know. I really wish she'd wait. She's just way too young. You know? But... I just want her to be OK. I know I can't stop her, so I just want her to at least be safe."

Man, I hope I can be like that woman when my own kids are older. Because I really want them to trust me enough to know that they can talk to me about something like that and, no matter how I feel about it, I'll still keep my head on straight and not make the situation worse. I really want them to know that I'm on their side, even if their side isn't what I would like it to be.