I decided to take my nighttime, kiss-my-kids-and-tuck-them-in hat off, as cozy as it may be. I did a costume change. I threw on my detective-spy-take-no-prisoners cap on. The official teenager addition.
I snuck over as fast as I could and followed a link that my child posted on the forbidden-to-me Facebook page. I won’t give any hints as to which child I’m talking about due to the embarrassment factor. Not my embarrassment, the kids! Anyhoo…it led me from Facebook to this other place called Formspring.me. *Smacks forehead*
Holy. Fucking. Crap.
These kids. At 12, 13, 14. No wonder they’re getting knocked up and infested with creepy crawly venereal diseases. Not my kids…yet. I’m just sayin’. In general-ish.
The stuff that I found on there. The questions. The answers. Were so inappropriate and vulgar and repulsive and suggestive. I was dumbfounded. Horrified. Shocked. And I may have thrown up in my mouth a little.
There were questions like: “Can I suck your (sex organ)?”, Sex Juice, Nom Nom, Does your business leak a lot, I want to touch your privates. And then, my personal favorite…AssRape.
This is on my child’s Formspring.me. And the questions were answered with things like, C’mon. Omg. Etc… But still. They were answered. And most ended with a LOL. I HATE LOL.
So. I screamed. LOUDLY. (In fact, you may have heard me) At my husband. To my husband. To make sure that he gets the point across to our children know that Formspring is unacceptable in our home. Because really, they don’t listen to me. He’s louder and maybe a tad bit scarier. So anyways…It’s just another place to Sext, to bully and to get into trouble. Also, it’s a cesspool for pervs and sex-offenders. Because we needed more of these types of worrisome places for our kids.
I sent Facebook messages to my kids in question. I let them know that we know. And if they don’t rid their Formspring accounts, that we would rid all ways for them to access it. My husband did more of the in-your-face pointing and threatening action. The kid in question did not understand why the Disciplinary Parental rings were activated and Dad took the shape of the bad guy and Mom took the shape of the “whatever he says” person. Because, well duh Mom and Dad, it’s MY page. I didn’t post those questions. *Bats tear filled eyes innocently* It’s sometimes really hard for me to keep off my slap-the-kids-senseless gloves.
Friends, this is a bad, bad place for our children to hang out. Keep an eye on your kids if they have accounts there. It is so raunchy and wrong. Well, the couple of accounts that I saw there were.
Now I’m going to have to go to the store and buy myself a Cape of Super Awareness and Glasses of Eyes Everywhere.
I suggest to you, if you haven’t already, at least put on your Sneaky Parent Detective Cloak and, well, sneak.
I’ll be honest here, I don’t know why parents are not already doing this. It’s not that I don’t trust my kids (well, it’s not JUST that), but it is totally 100% my job to not only protect them, but to know what they do and where they do it and who is present. Any decent parent knows these things about their children at any given time during the day or night, I don’t understand why some parents do not believe the same holds true online. I agree my kids have a right to privacy, but that’s what diaries are for. If they put it online, it’s not private anymore. Good for you for checking it out and laying down the law. Maybe if we all did this, there wouldn’t be so many kids on formspring.
I totally agree with usedtobeme. I check my kids’ online activity CONSTANTLY, and it sucks to have to do that but the alternative is worse. Good for you for putting your spy hat on! (don’t take it off, either!)
.-= Melisa with one S (PH)´s last blog ..Crossing That Bridge Because We Came To It =-.
I get notifications on everything my oldest son does on the internet. I know every comment made on Facebook, and I get every e-mail first other than from people we’ve already cleared (grandma and grandpa). Things rarely get by us and our son is fine with it because those were the rules when he got on the internet. He expects us to know what he’s doing on the internet! And he knows I’ll stop watching him when he turns 18…not a moment before!
.-= MomsManyProjects´s last blog ..Meal Plan–Week of May 2nd =-.
Ugh. Thanks for letting us know about this. Oldest is only 6 and so doesn’t do anything online unless I access it for her. So far we like Starfall and Nick Jr. (which has its own problems). I’m not at all looking forward to the teenage years.
I knew about Formspring from Twitter, but it never occurred to me that kids would be using it too… I know… naive. I do check on my son’s ‘social networking.’ its not so much snooping, as usedtobeme said, it’s part of protecting our kids, you have to do it, cuz it’s not just other kids corresponding with our kids.
.-= Tara R.´s last blog ..Baby bird update… =-.
My daughter is only five and she still needs my help to access the internet. What will be out there in ten, or even five, years? I don’t think I want to know. My theory is that as long as they live in my house they live under my rules and I have every right to “disrespect” their privacy.
.-= Jennifer´s last blog ..My kids could teach Mother Nature lessons in destruction. =-.
You’re much nicer than I am. My 9yo was watching questionable videos of an extremely violent nature, and I asked her where she learned about the site. She told….and I immediately confronted the parents of the child who told her about the site. You should have seen the kid’s face. You should have seen the mom’s face! The dad? he just looked at the floor with guilt. I wonder who the kid learned it from. I would have loved to stick around, must have been a fun night lol. The kids are no longer allowed to play together, because I don’t trust the father to be around my kid.
Good call on pulling the plug. I hate that parents let their kids use Facebook and Twitter without monitoring it. I don’t think that kids can be trusted on the internet. I know, I was fourteen once.
And once again, my dear friend, you have made the prospect of having teenagers in my house that much more unappealing. Because my 4yo’s current obsession with his penis isn’t enough!
.-= Kami´s last blog ..errr…This is Not My Beautiful Wife =-.
We have DB’s internet usage pretty well tamped down. I set all the bookmarks on his logon an if he wants to visit a site not on the bookmark list he has to type in the URL in front of either me or Hubman and we get veto power over the website.
We also do a random audit of his web usage right before he signs off.
Gotta be vigilant.
.-= Another Suburban Mom´s last blog ..HNT Foreplay =-.
Holy shit. My son is only 2 so I have a few years to think and WORRY about all of this but, again, SHIT. Formspring?? I’ve never heard about it. Thank you for enlightening me, for real. And good for you for freaking out about it. I would have lost my mind over something like that.
.-= Anne´s last blog ..Two Quick Stories =-.