TC and Privacy

[ciroccoj]

Damn, is all I have to say re. tobiascharity's "online stuff" situation.

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

1. 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.
   
   
2. 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.
   
   
3. 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.
   

::sigh::This really sucks, TC. I'm really sorry.

Comments

[snarkhunter.livejournal.com]

And the people she's not supposed to correspond with... successful college students? Professionals? Other teenagers? By and large, responsible tax-paying citizens? People who scored higher on the Purity Test than TC did? (sorry, couldn't resist;) These are the people you don't want to influence your impressionable youngster?</i. heh. Yeeeah. I'm about as innocent as they come. ;) But yeah. Those of us who are significantly older than she is are all apparently responsible citizens of our respective countries, with no interest in corrupting anyone into doing something stupid or anything they're not ready for. I just feel like her mom is overreacting to something she doesn't understand at all. I could be way off base here, but I get the feeling sometimes that TC isn't allowed to have hobbies just for the sake of fun. Everything she does as a hobby--and she has a ton of them--except for writing would look really good on a college app. So...isn't she allowed to have any fun at all? What's wrong with writing? When I was 14, I wrote all the time. I still do. My parents have never asked to see my writing, and that was fine with me. I didn't write fic until I was considerably older, but my original fiction, while astonishingly bad back then, was an outlet for me. I didn't always keep a journal, and I think if I had been banned from writing or if my parents had read my work w/o my permission, I would have been extremely upset. eh. I'm rambling here.

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

I could be way off base here, but I get the feeling sometimes that TC isn't allowed to have hobbies just for the sake of fun. Everything she does as a hobby--and she has a ton of them--except for writing would look really good on a college app. So...isn't she allowed to have any fun at all? What's wrong with writing?

Yeah, see, this is something else that bugs me. And I don't know if I'm just over-identifying with my own dad, who, as I said, would've gone nuts on me for various reasons had he lived with me.

My dad had a big thing about "wasting time" - ie it was a sin comparable to murder. I posted a comment on TC's site asking what's wrong with fic? and she answered very quickly: "slash, unoriginality, television."

OK, slash could be a looong topic. But unoriginality and television?

Perhaps TC's mom feels she's wasting her time with this, because fanfic usually never goes anywhere (shelves and shelves of Star Trek novels aside). And maybe she is. But guess what? That's part of what your teenage years are for. I know I wasted my time spectacularly at that age, doing lots of things that I now look back on and think, gee, that wasn't worth all that time and energy.

And my mother certainly encouraged me to expand my horizons and not waste more time than necessary, but it never would've occurred to her to 'ban' time-wasting activities, especially if they meant a lot to me. Banning and cracking down and betraying trust should really be reserved for things like "My daughter is selling herself for crack" or "My son is beating up gays for fun", not "my child is not using her time wisely". Get a grip!