Objects in Space - 08/09/2007

I have a MySpace page; yes I do. It started as a means to look at 3 of my sister's pages. They'd say "look at the blady-blah I posted," and when I would go look, it would tell me I needed to be my sister's "friend" to see their page. But...I am their sister!!! I signed up. My page is completely Buffied, as I am a geek.

Jake also has a page, mainly full of anime stuff. I monitor his page all the time. He won't post anything I would find objectionable, because he knows me.

I am his parent. I am not here to be his best friend. I am a parent. My job is to love him, nurture him, feed his body, mind & soul, house him, lead him by example and hope he takes to my instruction and grows to be a good man who will be honest, a hard worker and will treat his future girlfriends and wife with dignity & respect. I am not here to be his best friend. I won't be like a male parent I know, who told me that he would rather his teen boys drink alcohol in his home where he can monitor them. What? Uh, NO! I am a PARENT. I am not Lindsey Lohan's mom. He respects me, he loves me, he thinks I am old and a dork. He's not wrong.

I was reading and looking at his friends' pages. He leaves his page logged on and up on the screen on our computer. He has nothing to hide and I am proud of him. Some of the things I see, though, lead me to believe that some parents have no idea what is going with their kids' MySpace pages. Junior High girls posting pictures of themselves in their underwear? I doubt their mom knows about that. 13 & 14 year old girls who set their smiley icon mood to "Horny." Bet mom doesn't know about that one either.

I spoke frankly to Jake about all of it. (He rolled his eyes.) "It's just MySpace, it doesn't mean anything." I told him I hoped he made choices that would not make him be a follower or a victim of peer pressure. Am I old fashioned? In this day & age, maybe so. Do I care that I am old-fashioned? Not one iota. As a parent, do you?