In case it is not known to the masses, myspace has a requirement that all members be 14-years-old or older. And I know for a fact that there are thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands, of myspace account holders who are underage. Thus it made it hard for me to argue with my daughter when she got a myspace account at the age of 12.
Actually she didn't open the account, a friend of hers did. A friend who was also 12. Grace didn't do anything stupid, like put up her real name, her location, recognizable photos of herself, or anything else that would put her at risk. Within a very short amount of time, the myspace account had over 200 "friends," many of which were also under the age of 14. Unfortunately many of the friends were quite naughty. They used account names like "whatthefuck?!?!?" and "I'll giv u a peece of this sexy ass." And they took photos and posted them. Photos that were quite sexually provocative. They talked about drugs and drinking and sex and cheating at school. They cussed all over the place. I don't know who these "friends" were. Maybe my daughter knew them in the real world, maybe she didn't.
Now, before I go any further I'd like to point out that my nosiness into my daughter's business includes checking her email account regularly. She's had an email account since she was in 2nd grade, and I always have taken the liberty of checking it myself. She knows that I do this. In fact, I remind her quite often that I do. Some may think that this is an invasion of privacy. But my thought on it is that it is not an invasion if I am open with her and tell her I am checking it. In fact, often I email her and tell her advice given what I've found in the email account. (Advice to parents who do the same -- always remember to check the inbox, sent, saved, and trashed messages.) She has never reacted badly to me commenting on this and she hasn't done anything to conceal her email behavior as a result.
I only knew about the myspace account because I checked her email. She didn't ask me for permission, and there is no protocol on myspace that verifies a member's age nor their parents' knowledge of the existing account. When I saw the rampant presence of all-things-you'd-like-your-teenager-never-to-be-involved-in on her myspace page, I took action. I changed the password temporarily and the email address to my own until I got a chance to find out what was going on. I told her I was going to email myspace and find out about what to do. She freaked out. She begged me not to tell them. She said, they will delete my account, and then they will go after every single friend on my list. Realizing this might seriously damage her social life, I told her I would not identify her account in my correspondence. After contacting myspace, I found out the following: (1) myspace has no legal reason why they set their age limit at 14, (2) myspace does nothing to determine the age of its account holders, and (3) myspace does very little to monitor the content of accounts.
I told Grace, I know that everyone you know has an account, and I know that many of their parents have actually told them that it's ok. But it's not ok with me. Why? Because there's a rule that says you are too young. Same reason why you can't smoke or drink alcohol. Because there's a rule that says you are too young. Same reason you can't drive a car yet, or go to rated R movies without an adult, or buy lottery tickets. So I know that I'm the mom that is just not cool to let this one slip. We agreed that the password would stay changed, my email would remain on the account, and we cleaned up the page together. We deleted tons of "friends." And that was where things stood. I told her, when you are 14 we will revisit this issue. But not until you are 14.
When Grace's birthday came and went this winter, I kept thinking there was some reason that 14 was significant. But for the life of me I couldn't remember what 14 was good for. I just got reminded. As I checked Grace's email account this morning, I found in the trash folder in her email account was the message from myspace asking her to verify her email address. I visited the site and logged in. The page is entirely blank as of right now.
What would you do if you were me?
3 comments:
So, do you think that Grace deleted friends? Or that she started her own new myspace page? Or what exactly worries you?
And, BTW, I think what you're doing is appropriate and not invasive. My 14-year-old nephew has an account there and his mom (my sister) found a pic he put up of himself recently that was SO not appropriate. Yeah, they had a little talk. He gets to keep his account, but can't have those kind of pics of himself up.
Hi Amira,
She's apparently abandoned the old account and started a new one. It's not that surprising since we've moved across the country since she had the first account and she's sort of reinvented herself, including finding a different group of friends. I'm just trying to figure out if I should just allow her to develop the page without me intervening since she is 14 now. The other option is to get into her business about it because the last episode of myspace was so abysmal. I'm just not sure what to do. At some point I have to let this kid do things without her feeling like I'm looking over her shoulder, right? (Even though clearly I am vis a vis the email monitoring ;) )
I think--without having a teen yet myself but having worked with teens recently for a few years who did NOT have good parents--that this is the time in life when you are finding the balance of hovering versus trusting. I think you do a little of both, and, ideally, feeling that you can and MUST trust them more and more as they near the age of 18. It's all about helping them learn how to make good choices and not hurt themselves or others, right? ;) (Always easier said than done, and with a little armchair quarterbacking, too.)
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