Ranting and raving katekat1010 made a post about the new adult content rating for individual LJ accounts and when I started to respond to her in a comment, I realized that I should just post about it here because it was going to be angry and ranty.
Basic Principles of Children and Media (internet, video games, music, etc):
It is not the job of the rest of the world to parent, supervise, or even care about your children.
There is a lot of content out in the world that is confusing, misleading, or inappropriate for your kids. New technology makes it easier to access that content than ever before, but the solution isn't to ban it or make it hard for the rest of us (adults, both psychologically and legally) to get a hold of it, just because you are too busy, lazy, or uncomfortable to monitor your kids and talk to them about the things they may find in the Big Bad World.
The solution is as follows:
1. Be involved in your kids lives.
2. Talk to your kids about sex and violence, and why you are concerned about the messages they hear and the images they see.
3. Be open to talking about the things that no one wants to talk about. If you don't teach your kids how to be responsible about sex, drugs, power, and money, it's damn sure that rest of the world will, and will do it to support its own best interests, not theirs.
4. Teach your kids to think critically, evaluate the validity of the information they receive, and make sure that they realize that the rest of the world will happily make money off of their decisions to buy, watch, listen, and consume. The most important thing, regardless of the decisions they make, is to just be conscious of what they are doing, the impact it has, and why they're doing it at all.
5. Realize that nothing you can do is going to protect your kids 100%. In fact, they shouldn't be protected! They should have the trust and reasoning skills to make their own decisions about how they think, feel, and act. Yes, they will make stupid decisions, because they're kids and there are basic, biological reasons that kids are incapable of making the right decisions for the right reasons until the age of 20. Let them make mistakes and let them learn that there are consequences to making mistakes. How else are they ever going to make responsible decisions unless they know that they aren't invulnerable?
Child-rearing in the modern age is all about "protecting" your kids. This is stupid. Yes, you don't want them out in downtown at 3 a.m., but you also have to teach them to be responsible. Dependent, self-centered children will develop into dependent, self-centered adults, and all around crappy human beings. Protecting them from the world is the worst thing you can do.
So, all of this leads back to "adult content" warnings. Be they CDs or LiveJournals or whatever, I think they're kind of dumb. Sure, they're fairly harmless, and if places like Walmart refuse to sell items with those warnings, that's their decision as a company and yet another reasons I will not support them. Are they useful? I find it doubtful. After all, if the cd has a picture of shirtless guy with "Thug Life" tattoos holding two giant hand guns and is called Get Rich or Die Trying, chances are he's not singing about kitties but is rather singing about drugs, hos, and killing folks. In the same vein, if your child is unattended on the interwebs and is looking at websites called worldofwhorecraft.com, chances are he is not, in fact, trying to spec his new Night Elf hunter.
Granted, some of this is nostalgia at the good old days of the WWW when porn was free, chat rooms were fun, and MUDDS actually seemed revolutionary. And at the same time as I don't condone kiddy porn or identity theft, I am not thrilled about my online experience being controlled by lawyers and soccer moms.
I need to start a website called monitoryourowndamnkidsandleavemealone.com
no subject
Ranting and raving
katekat1010 made a post about the new adult content rating for individual LJ accounts and when I started to respond to her in a comment, I realized that I should just post about it here because it was going to be angry and ranty.
Basic Principles of Children and Media (internet, video games, music, etc):
It is not the job of the rest of the world to parent, supervise, or even care about your children.
There is a lot of content out in the world that is confusing, misleading, or inappropriate for your kids. New technology makes it easier to access that content than ever before, but the solution isn't to ban it or make it hard for the rest of us (adults, both psychologically and legally) to get a hold of it, just because you are too busy, lazy, or uncomfortable to monitor your kids and talk to them about the things they may find in the Big Bad World.
The solution is as follows:
1. Be involved in your kids lives.
2. Talk to your kids about sex and violence, and why you are concerned about the messages they hear and the images they see.
3. Be open to talking about the things that no one wants to talk about. If you don't teach your kids how to be responsible about sex, drugs, power, and money, it's damn sure that rest of the world will, and will do it to support its own best interests, not theirs.
4. Teach your kids to think critically, evaluate the validity of the information they receive, and make sure that they realize that the rest of the world will happily make money off of their decisions to buy, watch, listen, and consume. The most important thing, regardless of the decisions they make, is to just be conscious of what they are doing, the impact it has, and why they're doing it at all.
5. Realize that nothing you can do is going to protect your kids 100%. In fact, they shouldn't be protected! They should have the trust and reasoning skills to make their own decisions about how they think, feel, and act. Yes, they will make stupid decisions, because they're kids and there are basic, biological reasons that kids are incapable of making the right decisions for the right reasons until the age of 20. Let them make mistakes and let them learn that there are consequences to making mistakes. How else are they ever going to make responsible decisions unless they know that they aren't invulnerable?
Child-rearing in the modern age is all about "protecting" your kids. This is stupid. Yes, you don't want them out in downtown at 3 a.m., but you also have to teach them to be responsible. Dependent, self-centered children will develop into dependent, self-centered adults, and all around crappy human beings. Protecting them from the world is the worst thing you can do.
So, all of this leads back to "adult content" warnings. Be they CDs or LiveJournals or whatever, I think they're kind of dumb. Sure, they're fairly harmless, and if places like Walmart refuse to sell items with those warnings, that's their decision as a company and yet another reasons I will not support them. Are they useful? I find it doubtful. After all, if the cd has a picture of shirtless guy with "Thug Life" tattoos holding two giant hand guns and is called Get Rich or Die Trying, chances are he's not singing about kitties but is rather singing about drugs, hos, and killing folks. In the same vein, if your child is unattended on the interwebs and is looking at websites called worldofwhorecraft.com, chances are he is not, in fact, trying to spec his new Night Elf hunter.
Granted, some of this is nostalgia at the good old days of the WWW when porn was free, chat rooms were fun, and MUDDS actually seemed revolutionary. And at the same time as I don't condone kiddy porn or identity theft, I am not thrilled about my online experience being controlled by lawyers and soccer moms.
I need to start a website called monitoryourowndamnkidsandleavemealone.com