Morphing Mother

People who know me generally say that I’m a quiet person… a polite person… a respectful person. These are, I believe, accurate – until someone dares to hurt my child. Then, in the blink of an eye, I morph into a “Mama Bear” that would have EATEN Goldilocks long before fussing over whether she had tasted my porridge, sat in my chair or slept in my bed! You definitely don’t want to be standing between me and the poor, unfortunate soul who makes my daughter cry. Now, let’s frame this realistically. Kids are not perfect. Lord KNOWS my kids aren’t. They make their share of mistakes, bad judgment calls and have been known to do things so utterly mind-boggling from time to time that I have no recourse but to dissolve into a puddle of quivering laughter. Having said that – and some of you need to pay extra close attention here – as a matter of fact, scoot up rrrrrrrrrrrrrreal close to the monitor so that you don’t miss this: YOUR KIDS ARE NOT PERFECT EITHER!!!!!!!!! OK… so we’re all on the same page? Good! Let’s proceed. The other day, my younger daughter was using the desktop computer in my office. It has been a long summer for her which, while really nice and thoroughly enjoyable, has also been rather lonely. Her friends have been off here and there, dragging unhappy little behinds to day camps or going on family trips… the usual summer fare. So, she has been filling her days with worthwhile projects and, with permission, amusing herself on the Internet. Well, unbeknownst to me, she sent a prank email to one of her friends. Normally, she asks before she visits different websites but this was a joke generator – you know, one of those things where you give it a bunch of names or random words and it generates a silly story and sends it to an email address? Thinking her friend would appreciate the joke, off it went. Within the half hour that followed, my phone rang no less than three times. She answered the first call, said very little other than “sorry” and hung up. I turned to ask about the call, only to find her eyes filled with tears! It seems the recipient of the joke didn’t “get it.” Somehow, even though the text was so silly, so inane, so impossibly phony, the other child thought it was real. My daughter was basically accused of starting nasty rumors… which is really hard to do with a one-time email that was sent to a single address. Anyway… We proceeded to compose an email that provided the girl (and her mother) with all the information about the prank website, its privacy policy (because somehow they believed that this email was posted online somewhere!) and further details, encouraging them to review it for themselves so they would understand. As we clicked “send,” my phone rang. Again, my daughter answered. Again, she began to cry. I had had ENOUGH. I took the phone from her hand and addressed the other child by name… only to be hit with “uh… um… no… uh… this is (insert other mother's name here). This woman called MY house and started to give MY daughter hell, along with instructions about how she is to behave online. My daughter was unable to get a word in edgewise and simply stood, phone in hand, tears streaming down her cheeks. All this because she had sent her friend a joke! RRRRRROARRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!! Look out lady… here comes Mama Bear… Me: Can I HELP YOU? She: Yes, I was just calling to tell your daughter not to send …. Me: Stop right there. Do you KNOW what I do for a living?! She: No… Me: The biggest part of my job is working to help keep children safe online! She: uhhhh…. From this point on, let’s just say the conversation became a LOT of me talking and a LOT of her listening. I heard her concerns and respectfully explained that my children are NOT given free reign on the Internet. They are NOT allowed to be online, without permission, in my home (and, yes, I know that there are computers in plenty of places other than my office, thanks! I control the ones that I can and hope they’ve learned enough to deal with the rest). More than anything else, I would never allow one of my kids to say, do, send, create or otherwise be involved in something that harms or hurts another child – online OR off. My workdays are filled with kids doing EXACTLY THAT and I won’t tolerate it from my own. After Mama Bear’s claws finally retracted, the other mother explained to me that her daughter has “had trouble” in the past with posting friends’ photos on her website (without permission from those minor-aged kids or their parents) and the parents called her, demanding they be taken down. Her daughter didn’t understand that either. She has not yet learned the concept of what we call giving “personally identifying information” online… and that INCLUDES images. A bout of nasty guestbook posting resulted in complaints that somehow escalated all the way to their school principal! At this point, I got a very clear picture. Consequently, I spent a long time, on the phone, answering questions and giving details about websites that are not appropriate for kids of her daughter’s age, what random instant messages are, right down to the “codes” that kids type to each other to signal to their IM buddies that there is a “POS.” In my day, that meant “piece of s**t” and usually applied to cars! Now, it means “Parent Over Shoulder” as in “Don’t type a thing to me right now that you don’t want my mom or dad to see!” At the end of our conversation, she told me that she doesn’t know much about computers and isn’t one bit interested in learning. That’s her prerogative BUT, if your child is going to be online from sun up to sun down, you have a responsibility to learn some things! This entire fiasco reminded me that there are too many parents out there who are very quick to discipline OTHER people’s children. They are very vocal about the behavior of OTHER people’s children. They are also very quick to criticize OTHER parents. I respectfully suggest that good behavior and discipline start at HOME. So, you worry about the porridge, chairs and beds in YOUR house, Goldilocks, and let me take care of MINE because – word of warning from Mama Bear – ya mess wit da cubs, you’re gonna get bit.