It is 2 am and my boy, Harrison, just finally fell back asleep after trying to banish from his mind the pornographic pictures some kid kept shoving in his face on the bus this week.
I feel so…angry.
My sons have been in school for nine days. During those nine days they have ridden the bus five times. Five. That’s it. They’ve been given strict instructions to sit together on the bus due to issues last year with bullies and inappropriate iPod use of other children, but apparently since they like to play “I Spy” and talk out loud the driver sometimes separates them.
Enter pornography 101.
I have to wonder how parents who hand their 9, 10, 11, 12-year-old children iPods can automatically trust them to only access the good parts of the world wide web. Because let me tell you, kids are kids. They are curious and it only takes one or two of them to get other kids to use their media inappropriately. And hey, why not show everyone else on the bus because it’s so cool to shock the elementary schoolers?
Last year Harrison had an older kid (10 year old) shove a pornographic picture under his nose. It really upset him and affected his ability to fall asleep for a week. School has been in session for two weeks and it’s already happened again.
What are we thinking? As mother’s, we have a responsibility to protect our children from this kind of poison, and poison it is. To think that children are now spending their spare time searching for polluted images during these tender years, kids who no doubt come from nice normal families, says that parents aren’t paying attention to what’s really going on. If they were then I wouldn’t have girlfriends with small children who all share similar experiences.
There’s not a lot we can do to battle pornography with the men and women of today’s world. Once you’re of age it’s a private battle , but I can do something here.
We have a responsibility to these children to keep this kind of twisted, dirty corruption out of their lives. We have to teach them to say no and say it out loud. We have to remind them to never, ever look at a phone or iPod before they ask what kind of picture is about to be shown. We’ve told Harrison that if he ever sees any kind of pornography to tell us immediately and we’ll help him know what to do about it. I’m so glad he’s listening, we might not be able to take those pictures from his brain but we can certainly help him think of ways to bypass them.
We have to ask and ask often. It’s embarrassing for kids to talk to parents about this kind of thing so often they don’t. We didn’t know that happened to him last year until this summer when we had a talk about pornography and he told us.
But these are my cubs and so help me, I will not stand by and watch this kind of thing happen. Our generation is far less savvy about what’s going on in schools and with media than we should be because it’s all new territory for us. We didn’t have this kind of thing forced down our throats by peers twenty years ago at the touch of a finger. We had to go looking for it…now it comes after them.
Be part of the solution. Talk to your kids about media and talk often, it’s a battle they will all fight.
Honey, nothing brings out the mama bear in me more than this. I’m so sorry, and it makes me mad at the world. But I’m like you, “not on my watch.”
Mama bear has nothing on mad human mamas.
My almost-seven-year-old was offered a beer at a neighbor’s house a few weeks ago. I nearly tore houses down.
But you’re right. We’ve learned that talking as often as is necessary, and keeping the tone safe and non-threatening when he hasn’t done anything wrong, is critical to keeping dialogue open and productive with our boy.
Appalling. I’m so sorry you have to deal with this.
It also gives me a lot to think about with my three. yikes.
Thank you
I could go on and on about this subject . . . but won’t!
You GO Mama Bear!
Sometimes I wish we could all go back in the cave as far as technology goes. You give your child one of those gadgets and you give them the WHOLE world . . . . . do they really need that? NO!
Ohh! You whole situation makes me so angry and scared all at the same time. It is horrible that this is happening. I guess I should be glad that most of the children on my sons’ bus don’t have enough money to have this devices yet. Even if my sons had them which they don’t, they wouldn’t be taking them to school with them.
Oh goodness, thats horrifying! I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with this at such a young age already! But at least you’ve taken this as an opportunity to talk with your son, its sad how many parents don’t. (Obviously since this whole situation is happening!)
This is so prevalent these days, and it scares me! We had a talk about inappropriate images with our kids at FHE this summer, thinking especially about our 7 year old. Imagine the shock when my 4 year old was the one who said that a boy in her PRIMARY class had shown her a naughty picture!! I about came unglued! It is everywhere, but we talk about these things at least once a month. I’m so sorry your kids had this happen again; what a way to start the new school year. 🙁
We can’t just trust that talking is enough. We need to be pro-active in our communities. Our community is now waging a war on our public libraries to put filters on the public computers. Last week a man was “escorted” out of the library for masturbating at the library while watching porn. We need to contact our various city officials and school officials. We need to keep contacting them until the problem is fixed. Let our voices be heard. This is not okay.
I thought it was hard raising my kids those many years ago…my oldest soon to be 40 and youngest 28. AND I cringe at the challenges ahead for YOU and all of those young parents with the sacred responsibility to guide these children. I pray for my grandkids nightly.