Parents – Do You Have A Note From Mommy?

Parents – Do You Have A Note From Mommy?

– By Ed Kociela –

As any parent worth their salt understands, the more you try to separate your child from certain people, places, and things, the more they are drawn to those certain people, places, and things.

Tell little Bobby to stay away from little Johnny, and guess who becomes his best friend?

Tell Sally she cannot go out with Joey, and guess who she is soon going steady with?

It’s the war of the generations that have played out for millennia and will continue as long as there are parents and children.

Tell a child no, and they will undoubtedly find a way around it.

That’s why a recent law passed by the Utah Legislature is doomed.

And, quite frankly, it should be.

The governor recently signed off on what is called the Utah Social Media Regulation Act, which would ban advertisements geared to minors, impose a curfew from 10:30 PM until 6:30 AM to prevent minors’ access to social media, and, most importantly, require age verification for all Utah residents to access social media. And it would require that social platforms give parents access to their children’s accounts.

This.
Will.
Not.
Work.
Under any circumstance.

It is naïve legislation that assumes parents have the wherewithal and desire to hold such a tight grip on their kids and their activities.

Families are not built that way anymore, and it is probably a good thing that authoritarianism like that is being driven away. “Because I said so” is no longer a legitimate reason for a parent to demand behavior changes.

Besides, kids are fairly clever and will find a million ways to get around such restrictions.

More importantly, it can be honestly argued that placing such restrictions could harm the social development of young people who are vulnerable and could be exposed to more jeopardy if locked out from their natural culture of peers.

We should be more concerned with the bullying and the lies that permeate social media and poison young and old alike, the manipulation of emotions, and the mob mentality that led to the attempted overthrow of the United States by a band of traitors stuck on a shattered image of a presidency gone awry.

You want some little puppet child? A you-clone? A programmable piece of fish swimming blindly through life, never challenging, exploring, of questioning? Then go right ahead and restrict your child from growing mentally, culturally, spiritually or in any other way and have all these sheep wandering along the well-worn path of their parents. The thing is this: At some point, they will hopefully grow up, take a look around, and find their own path. As Bob Dylan told us:

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don’t criticize what you can’t understand.
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command.
Your old road is rapidly aging.
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend a hand
For the times they are a changing’

I was a pretty good kid for the most part – respectful, diligent, honest – but there were times when I was the first one over the wall. I used this Dylan verse to explain something to my mom once and she was aghast. In fact, it did quite a bit of damage to an already fragile, at best, relationship. I thought it spoke truth, she thought differently. I was proven right, I think, a lesson I carried into my own turn at parenthood, although the jury is still out on how that turned out.

The thing is, your babies are only babies for so long and, at some point, must learn to live, breathe, and think for themselves without an authoritative voice haunting their ears and trying to mold them into a little me-clone.

These kids go out into the world, even if it is only to high school, and are exposed to things – good and bad – that will either teach them or scar them. But they are lessons that must be learned and scars that must be healed. Sure, there are evils out there, but as a parent, teacher, or whatever, it is our job to make kids aware of life’s pitfalls. And, in fact, we don’t always recognize a pitfall, even when it is staring us in the face. We are not bulletproof, even if we are adults. We wish of course, for our children to live unscathed lives, but that is impossible, and, quite frankly, the older we allow them to remain naïve, the greater dangers they face when they finally step out on their own.

There is also the peer pressure thing. Imagine what it would be like to be the only one in your social circle unable to communicate on Facebook or any of the other platforms. You are suddenly the outsider, the one your friends make fun of, the one that gets bullied because you aren’t part of the group. It is embarrassing, devastating, harmful to one’s sense of self.

We all have this need to belong, to be a part of something. And, for any variety of reasons, social media provides them. It is a place where the nerdy types who are all about the chess club and science classes can find a community of like-minded people. It is a place where members of the LGBTQ community can go uninhibited to find comfort and understanding. It is a place where you can go to learn many of life’s lessons in socialization and cultural development.

Restrictions on social media sound, at first like a perfect solution, until you realize that all they would do is hamper mental, emotional, and spiritual growth.

Most importantly, restrictions translate into a lack of trust and faith in parent and child alike, the most disturbing part of this law.

As parents and children, we have all made huge mistakes.

But, are our failures reason enough to invade every corner of privacy our children want and need?

I don’t think so.

Not if we truly have their best interests at heart.

This is bad law, knee-jerk law that is, if you start connecting the dots, akin to book burning.

Guide your children, love your children, support your children, and, for God’ sake, teach your children.

But, do not try to take charge of their every thought and movement.

Your sons and your daughters are, truly, beyond your command.

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