The Biggest new DON'T for kids ?

 

What is the biggest "Dont" we told our kids in the past?  Dont accept rides from strangers. 

I am not sure if that is still true today.  Or maybe it shouldn't be.  Maybe the biggest NEW DON'T should be: DON'T take any pictures or videos on your phone camera of you or friends or siblings in anything but their clothes doing normal things.  (That is a bit long.  We need a short slogan.  Maybe, "Normal pictures only".  I don't know if that would get the idea across).  Anyway, I am sure you know what I am getting at.  

Why I bring this up now is because I had a little incident in January and it sent me reeling and I had to think about it and now I have to write about it.  

As I understood it from hearing both sides of the story, one sister had to send a picture of another member of the family to a school class of hers.  Now while that may sound innocent enough, of course the person sending the picture had to get the ok to send it from the other person.  So she said she had to send it secretly because no one in the family would want her to send a picture of them.  So she took a picture of her younger sister, in a normal setting, and sent it.  She did not ask her sister's permission, and that is where the trouble came in. Note, my daughter did not ask me for a picture.  She said that I wouldnt have let her send it, but I think I would have.  

Normal picture of kids 

So then what happened was the younger sister in retaliation started taking a video of her older sister who was still in bed in her pajamas.  Nothing dangerous, but of course the older sister did not like that and was trying to hide.  

This part was what made me angry and talk directly and strongly to them. I said, "No no no, no videos or pictures of the other person in bed, or in pajamas or anything besides in clothes and only if they are allowed to."  I said, erase that video right now. I dont even want it on your phone.  Get rid of it now.  

That was when she told me that her sister had taken a picture of her and according to her, sent it to some boy already in her class.  I went to the other sister to get the story straight and she told me the story of just needing the picture of a family member for school.  

(You see, it is difficult to even get the truth on the whole situation)

The stories were not accurate and there were misunderstandings, but the end result was I said  that no videos or pictures of the other person on phones or any gadgets in less than regular clothes and even those only with permission.  I said this to both girls and with equal strength no matter who took the video or picture. In the end the one sister deleted the picture and the younger sister deleted the video and she showed me she had deleted it.  

Really, the problem is, even these seemingly harmless pictures can wind up in the wrong hands and ruin a person.  It can be the start of other people making fun of them. Then it can grow to completely demoralizing them in school.  

You may have heard of the big scam recently of the Pornhub pornography portal getting in a lot of trouble because there is said to be a lot of underaged images there and films with people who did not give their consent to the film let alone wanting it on the internet.  The sad thing is to hear how it has ruined people to the point of suicide, for years. Even decades later they still can come across unwanted results from the pictures or the film.  These are not consensual remember.  

The underage part and non consensual really gets me.  This just results in the destruction of the human spirit, the destruction of the person and the utter lack of knowledge of how to escape the consequences. 

That is very sad for me.  Very sad.  And I really dont see how we will come to any positive conclusion on this.  In other words this is going to reoccur and reoccur for many years to come and destroy more people.  

Thus I had to get this across to my daughters NOW and in a strict, I mean business, tone.  Of course they know about this. They know more about electronics and how to use them than I do.  What they do lack has nothing to do with electronics and how they work, but just with how their brains work.  Their brains are of course not yet developed and chaotic and dont have the full reasoning capabilities.  Thus even if they know about this danger, I really dont think they understand who is "out there" that could take advantage of them and hurt them.  They dont understand how it could spread beyond their control. 

I am afraid of the talk I will have to have with them one on one later as they are a bit older about NOT sending "pictures" to their boyfriends, or any friends for that matter.  I am not looking forward to that. Many of the pictures which destroyed girls were just sent to boyfriends who pleaded for a "compromising" picture and the girls trusted the boys, they were their boyfriends after all, they wouldnt hurt them, would they?   But they did, it did, even to suicidal tendencies and extreme hopelessness. Changing schools to no avail.  Sleeping in cars to get away from a hometown.  It saddens me no end as to how their lives were destroyed rather easily.  

That is why I started now with this small flame up and I will have to re enforce the message later.  That is why now, I think the new biggest "DONT" for our kids should be: "DONT send, or even take, "pictures" (or videos) of yourself to ANYBODY".   

Thanks for reading. 

New Years: Off on the wrong foot

If this January 1st

 My wife makes me this lentil loaf at the beginning of the year so I will make money for the rest of the year.  It used to be lentil soup, now it is vegan lentil loaf.  It hasnt helped me one bit.  I am poorer now after all those years of eating lentils.  I am not going to eat any this year just to tempt the fates and flout the superstition.  Anyway I could just as well eat some pork and sauerkraut and that would do the trick too.  

The point being is that you are supposed to start the New Year off right.  The first day is how the rest of the year will be. Right?  Ie if you have a bad first day, then you will have a bad year.  I hate these supersttitions and yet you always grind your teeth and bite your nails if you dont follow them.  Right?  Well, then my year is doomed because I have really started it off badly.   I might as well just go into hybernation for the rest of the year and wake up in 2022 is what I am thinking. 

1.  Pain

Having nothing to do with being a father or anybody in particular, last week I dont know what happened, and I guess you dont care, but I am just saying, I must have pulled a muscle. Or something happened.  I hope it is a muscle because then it can get better. If it is a bone, then I am in trouble.  It is in my neck so the pain is going down my whole back on the left side and even into my arm.  This isnt covid, I dont know what this is.  I tried a hot water bottle but nothing. Making my usual terrible sleep into horrible.  The type where your dreams correspond to the pain in your back. You try to find a position where the muscles are relaxed, but I cant find anything.  This reminds me of a good internet friend who disappeared a year or so ago who had colitis.  He said when he had attacks it was unbearable.  And maybe due to the colitis, maybe not, he would sometimes wake up screaming and or banging the wall.  Wow.  Where ever you are now, Rick B, I am walking just a little bit in your shoes these days.  

So this is making me miserable... and tired.  I sleep ten hours in the bed and still am tired.  And 

Then this the rest of the year

miserable.  Not really the mood for taking on kids.  Even taking a nap in the afternoon after I have only been up for 4 hours.  That is the back drop, the starter of the new year.  Again, hail to all you suffering right now from Covid or other even more unbearable pains or diseases.  I am able to empathize just a little. I sure wish it would go away. It just sucks all your strength and emotions into this pain. 

2.  No respect from my kids at the start. 

Here we go with this discipline thing again.  Look anybody who likes chocolate would sure wish to be able to eat chocolate 24/7 or potato chips, I like them too.  But you have to balance everything in life.  Not too much chocolate or chips. Not too much time on the gadgets playing the video games.  Equal amounts of vegetables and fruits and getting to your homework.  Gosh darned if one hour doing homework equals two hours of watching tv or video games.  Every adult knows this and most kids know this too.  But the shortest road to happiness is the one with no homework.  Yes, even over Christmas vacation there is still some stuff you have to get done and prepare for after vacation.  

Ow the pain!!!!

But when I tried to maintain the balance for my kids over vacation, even allowing for more fun and chocolate and chips every day during the daily movie together, I still got total disrespect on January 2nd.  Laughing and "yeah yeah" which means, right, like I am going to listen to you.  And even whispering by the kids against me.  Derision.  And this wasnt the Rodney Dangerfield "I dont get no respect", this was kid s bullying me.  My own kids.  It is very difficult to fight back, although you feel the temper swelling.  This is the time they recommend parents to take a step back and get out of the room away or listen to some soothing music.  Sit down away from the temper.  

I sat in my lunch chair and stewed.  I should have put on my new Christmas gift CD (pictured below).

The incident at hand was just that my daughter was messing around with her telephone at lunchtime at the eating time.  That time is sacred for me. It was when I was growing up and I want it to be now.  I have said before no gadgets at eating time. And this was the beginning of the year lunch eating together when we should be even more together and talking with each other.  Yet, it was just "yeah year, wait a minute".   And what was she doing which was so important?  Putting down her new spotify playlist on her new smart phone.  That got me.   That totally unnerved me.  Maybe it was a small thing. I guess I made too big a deal out of it.  You think afterwards.  I guess so.  But at the time it ruined me. 

 I just wanted to be alone.  Luckily they were going to their Grandmas for overnight and I WOULD be alone.  To stew in my physical pain and my emotional pain.  And I did. I really felt blue.  It really was not the best way to start the new years.  

The thing is, they recommend eating lentils or fish scales or pomegranates on the new year day in order to be more prosperous for the year to come.  But do they have anything to eat that will give you strength to be a good parent for the rest of the year??  I have never heard of anything. Please let me know if there is such a thing.

I pray the year will get better from this inauspicious beginning. And in fact when they came back from Grandmas on Jan. 3, it WAS better.  But my neck was still killing me.  

Listened to this CD my daughter gave me for Christmas. I was very happy with it. 

(Bob Dylan of course)