I often wonder if I am a good mother. It’s pretty hard to gauge when there is no tangible proof, relying solely on what we see is difficult. It is not until we are older and our children are older that we will be able to see what kind of people they have turned out to be. I try hard to instill values and morals but they are my values. They are also growing up in a different time. Society is very different from when I was a child. It seems to be much harder today for teens and young kids. The pressure on them to be perfect is incredible. And by perfect I mean; thin, tanned, well dressed, financially set..... Oh and the girls today insist on it. Often making the not so perfect girls feel second best. The teenage girl today in many ways seem disengaged from societal moral responsibility. Social media has had a profound impact on girls today; MSN was the big deal when my girls hit senior status in elementary school. That very quickly became the new avenue for conversing, bullying and gossip. It allowed kids that age to engage without having to worry about the reactions of the kids they spoke about, quite simply because there was no physical responses to be seen or heard. If kids made another cry they were not present to see the reaction. I think this helped desensitize our children. Even though there are a lot of benefits to this type of instant communication, there are also a lot of negative behaviours that develop within a child with each new advancement on the internet.
I held off with my oldest daughter by not letting her have MSN until high school, as I felt it was a bad influence. Of course it became the norm in every household and eventually the 2 younger girls got it. I tried really hard to not allow MSN to become a problem as it a highly addictive form of media, especially when you can instantly chat with as many individuals you can simultaneously. It then became a battle to get them off. The frustration of lying in bed and hearing the indicators that a new message was sent drove me crazy!!! Holy Crap I would become irate. Eventually I took the internet card out of the main computer when I went to bed.
Eventually I noticed a change in my girls. The drama they seemed to talk about seemed abnormal to me. It just seemed to be ridiculous how everyone seems to know everyone else’s business. And not only that, everyone felt they have a right to form an opinion and then comment on it. Texting and facebook has just added to the whole problem. Viral is what this generation is. Drama in huge proportions!!! It sickens me that everyone knows everything, and of course that means everyone’s shit! Girls don’t sit around and creep facebook and say positive stuff, they are critical of others statuses, their profile pics, who they date, what they did at parties...blah blah blah!!!!!!
I struggle with this all the time. I know that I did not raise my girls to be critical or to engage in such behaviour. Am I the only parent that hears about all the drama at school and hears the gossip ring? NO....but I am fed up with it! Don’t get me wrong I am sure that the amount of face booking, texting and chatting that happens in my own home is no different than the amount that happens in yours or someone else’s. BUT, I fear that my daughters are becoming unattached. I have no idea how to read my girls texts, are they actually saying whatever with attitude or whatever like it’s no big deal? Should there be no smiley face at the end of a bbm or a lol, I wonder if they are they pissed or having a bad day? I am lost in the whole concept of proper text protocol. What about texting within the house or the same room? Like you are f(&^$ ing kidding me right? I am on the couch and they are a mere 20 feet from me, and I get a text? PLEASE tell me that this is not the new form of communication? My response to everything now is NO, and I don’t care. I figure if the question is that important they can ask me directly. If they need to hide behind a phone to ask me what they know will upset me then ....I feel like I have failed. Why won’t they just come and talk to me, you know put the effort in, walk 10 paces towards me, un grip the death hold on the phone and utter actual words from the English language.. otherwise my answer will remain no. The dinner table is a no phone zone. If you come to my home you will be told open your phone and you will find it under my van tire... I share this sediment with their friends as well. The friends’ response will either be “ya my mom freaks out about that too.” Or “my folks gave up on that rule”.
Facebook is another media that worries me. I am not so worried about my 2 older girls, it is more my youngest daughter, as she has been exposed the longest to this media. Like MSN I made my oldest wait ....and like MSN I gave in with my youngest which was in my opinion a huge mistake. I like to refer to Samantha’s generation of kids as the ‘show me’ generation. As they like to show everything and tell everything about themselves, for the purpose of having everyone comment or give opinions on. Polls being conducted every mille-second! According to the pollsters, yes the blue shirt looks good on you, no the jeans aren’t great and no you should not date that guy! Like wow! All from a picture! Now I have facebook and all my friends have facebook so I personally understand the addiction, however the amount of drama that transpires from it is to the extreme. I hate the fact that I spend a lot of time talking to these girls about drama, drama that could have been avoided if these kids didn’t write messages on each other’s walls. The lack of personal contact when messages are written can and are misinterpreted, as the body language and facial expressions are void when written. This also means that the arrogance of what kids write/share is quite frankly ridiculous. I guarantee half of what most kids will put in a message or a text ....they wouldn’t have the balls to say to ones face. Of course this increases the bullying and peer pressure. The big picture here is they don’t even realize by doing so they feed into their own pressure. They themselves pressure other kids to follow suit.
I feel very worried about my youngest daughter as the internet, and cell phone addictions are greater at their age. Yes it is still bad for the older ones but the younger kids have been exposed at an even younger age. Which means the way they are learning how to communicate with their peers will affect their abilities when they are older. At least that is one of my fears. The way in which they choose to express themselves is quite different from that of kids even just a few years older than them. I see the difference between my daughter in grade 12, and my daughter in grade 9. It is huge! Facebook and social sites have an incredible impact on our children. Drinking for an example, in grade 12 we all as parents accept (not agree with) the fact that they drink...but now in grade 8 and 9 they want to? Why? It’s cool, so cool that they can’t wait to stand with a beer or cooler and smile for the camera, and then bang it’s on facebook. “See mom everyone is doing it now” “things are different now”. Yes things are different because you all want to show off and are desperate for that daily feed of the “wow factor”. Wow you look gorgeous in that pic, you are hot, you are the coolest.....
So as a parent I feel like I am battling everyday to keep a balance of reality in this house. I struggle with having to have real life conversations almost every single day with my girls. They just don’t seem to get that they themselves make their own lives more difficult by buying into this nonsense that in the end only damages them more. I get the whole texting, I get the whole media of facebook, but I don’t get the way these kids feel it’s a life line. What happened to parents yelling at their kids to get off the land line phone? I was prepared for that! Now they don’t know if so and so is going out because they are not logged on to their computer to find out????? I ask them “why don’t you just call them and ask?” “I don’t know the phone number”. Really? Arrrrgh!
Don’t get me wrong I have not lost total control over them, but I feel like my message is less received. I am trying to instill values, ethics and everyday life experience on them and worry my message is perhaps not hitting the target. I recently suspended my girls’ phones for 1 week to see what would happen. The first day ....can you say witches? But by day 3...guess what? They actually came and sat with me in the living room and watched a tv show with me! Yup they had nothing else to do!!No one to text! And I think their hands even started to straighten out (you know the hand cupped with a prema- phone in it)! I enjoyed the week without the phone distraction and also proved my point. I face what every other parent with teenagers face, but I don’t worry about what other households do, I don’t want to gauge my life through other homes. I just feel in my home it can get out of control. I worry about the behaviours they learn today will have a social impact later for them. But I don’t know that yet, as being a parent is a wait and see what happens later job. The only real markers come after the lessons. I know my girls are responsible and wonderful people, and yes they have a social conscience but will they always? Dear God I hope so. I will just keep plugging away at my deep conversations with them about life and hope that they hear what I say. Hopefully it will take affect later so that I can see directly what my impact may have been.
Christine
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