Scholarly Stuff

Grad school assignments, required readings, etc.

MySpace, personal space and raising kids

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As I was scanning articles today, I came across a case where a 13-year-old lied about her age in order to access MySpace. The story unfolds with predictable outcome: girl meets older boy, boy thinks girl is 18, they hook up irl, girl and mom sue MySpace for sexual assault.

My parents were pretty strict, but the rules in our house were based on trust. If they said be home at 8 and I got home as scheduled, then next time it might be 8:30 that I could return. I remember one evening pedalling home on my bicycle as fast as my legs could fly, in order to beat the street lights, which were popping on one by one behind me … I had to be home by dark, and the street lights coming on were the deadline at my house. (I made it in the nick of time, btw.)

I got my first telephone in my bedroom when I was in the 5th grade. In fact, if I remember correctly, it was a bday present — my dad manually installed and ran a phone cord up the side of the house to my 2nd floor room and surprised me with my very own telephone. Even with the phone in my room, however, my talk time was limited, and I was still not allowed to call boys unless it was homework-related.

All this is to say that my parents knew where I was, when I’d be home, with whom I was and what I was doing. Kids today seem to parent themselves in so many regards. It amazes me that parents let their kids have unmonitored Internet access in their rooms — on their own computers — or have cell phones with unlimited text messaging with no restrictions on when and to whom they can talk. There are kids in my son’s class (2nd grade!!) who have their own cell phones. I just can’t wrap my head around it.

I know it’s going to be difficult to monitor my sons’ behavior, considering the seemingly omnipresent access to technology these days, but hopefully we can use these early years to instill a level of trust and expectation so that they are not surprised by the boundaries that we place around them when they are older.

Do kids need personal space? Sure they do — I pick my battles and try to loosen the apron strings, when appropriate. Do my boys have “rights” to read, view, listen or play whatever they want whenever they want while they live under my roof? Heck, no!

Wrapped in brown paper

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In our first class of the semester this morning (and my last course toward my degree … but who’s counting?!), we discussed four structures of mass media: authoritarian, libertarian, social responsibility and soviet-totalitarian. I’ve been thinking about the People’s Republic of China and trying to decide whether it should be in the soviet-totalitarian or the authoritarian category.

I know that China is seeking to put on its best “face” in preparation for the Olympics, and I think the national govt would want the world to believe that it is in the authoritarian category — where the media is supervised but not completely under the thumb of the powers that be. A couple of memories came to mind as I thought this through …

1) When I was in China in 1997 (I taught English as a Foreign Language to freshmen & sophomore college students), some of my students told me in confidence (b/c it wasn’t appropriate for them to discuss, much less with a foreign teacher) that their parents did not believe the Tienamin Square massacre ever happened. They did not have access to much foreign media, and what they did see, they did not trust. I was shocked that so many hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people could be literally brainwashed by their national media.

2) I had the opportunity to attend a “Three-Self” government-condoned church while I was in China. It was very interesting and much like our own church services at home, in many regards. There was singing and teaching, and though I didn’t understand the language well enough to follow, it was evident that the Spirit of God is capable of moving His people even in restricted circumstances. One observation is burned in my memory — that of a petite, elderly lady who stood up very slowly after the service was finished, wrapped her Bible in what looked like a brown paper sack that had been cut to fit like a book cover and walked out of the church and down the street. It dawned on me that the most beloved book on the planet had to be wrapped and carried incognito in public.

I think China still has quite a ways to go before I would consider it less tight-fisted than the soviet-totalitarian model.