Internet Retribution...Parenting In a Social Media Age: Old School Style

One of the authors I follow on FB posted a picture of her daughter holding a sign saying in essence, since she didn’t know how to use social media properly she would be taking a hiatus from it until she learned how to use social media responsibly. Her picture went viral and she had comments from one end of the spectrum to the other. In an entry later, she said the majority of it was positive, but she had a small portion that thought she was the worst mother ever and her daughter would have serious problems later in life.


I applauded her actions. I wish more parents had the gumption and the mind to do what she did. Really. In my family I am known as the Internet crawler. I am going to be on your FB page and blog and I will monitor what the hell you are saying, posting and showing on your pages. Drives my niece crazy, but I do. My normal manner is to tell their parents and let them handle it from there. Sometimes I personally tell them to take the mess down.


My sister monitors her children on the computer. Faithfully and she will always do so. (I do not agree with reading her journal, but I am a child whose mother read her journal so I purposely would say hateful things). She has parental controls on the computer and the computer in her home is in the living room so anyone walking in will see what you are doing.  Social media also made my oldest niece bold and brazen, where she tweeted a situation that she failed to think her mother would see and my sister took it to her old school.  Posting personal things, especially things about your mother is really, really not a good idea.
My cousins cannot curse on their pages, the younger ones. The older ones I send direct messages asking are they going through something because I am sure their coworkers and supervisors are viewing their page with wonderment as well. There are no bikini shots for the females, AT ALL. Take that mess down. My niece tried it a few times but as soon as she posted it, she had to take it down. I am good.  I also do not believe and putting all your business on your page.  Even if it is going out to eat, you are basically telling your so called friends you aren't home and they can come rob you.  Extreme, but it could happen.  (An alleged rapist in the area used FB to meet new friends and set up his targets.)


Now I have some younger cousins who I would never have allowed to establish a FB page, they are too young to handle the responsibility. A few weeks ago I was doing my nightly crawl and I notice the 12 year old cousin (yes this is too young for FB, but I am not his mama) had posted a picture of Mil.ey Cyr.us, it wasn’t just the picture that was the problem it was the picture of pen.is in her mouth that was the problem. Mind you I am on my phone so I using the fact I am extremely nearsighted in my left eye, I put the phone up to the eye and dang, my mouth dropped opened and I was done. Who the heck was monitoring his behind on the computer and how did he get the picture? I called his grandmamma and she called his mama and his page was taken completely down. It had only been up on the computer for an hour before I spotted it. Yeah, I was angry, but I was concerned because neither the grandparents nor the parents have parental controls on their computer. I talked to his grandmamma about it and asking her to move her computer out of the bedroom and into a more visible room.


Parents are not their kid’s friends. The Guy told me of how he handles cleaning the kitchen in his household. His sons have to clean the kitchen and that includes hand washing the dishes and wiping down the counters and stove, but they must also sweep the floor. You know old school clean up. He unplugged his dishwasher. Yes, because dishwashers make them lazy, my opinion. Anyway, if they do not clean the kitchen properly he will get a dirty dish with water in it and wake them up in bed with a nice thought, wet thought, now you have to go clean the kitchen in the middle of the night, but you also have to change your linen. I love it. His son told him he had folded up his clothes after washing them. Well, The Guy found the clothes just thrown into the laundry basket. He asked his son if he was sure he put the clothes up and told him to go check his room. I wish I could have seen his face, because The Guy took all the clothes piled into the laundry basket and threw them all over his room along with the dirty clothes. Now he had to re-wash everything.  Be still my heart.  Old school style.


My sister has the same problem with my niece about cleaning the kitchen. I told my sister old school style works. My aunt only had to wake me up out of my sleep once. I learned quickly what a clean kitchen meant. If my sister would do that, just once, she would save herself the pressure issues.


I don’t have kids and the kids I helped raise are grown. However, they know how to clean a kitchen, wash clothes and clean a house better than most women. They love their mama, even though they are reminded of the butt whippings they got because each of the whippings taught them a lesson and mainly not to make the same mistakes again. A whipping is not a beating, keep that in mind. In this age, punishing your children has to take on a different method. Not punishing them means when they are working their first jobs with me, I am trying to play catch up on discipline with them and sometimes it helps, but as I am seeing it really is too late. Your kids are not your friends; they will appreciate the discipline when they are older because at least they know you cared.


Again, I applaud the parents who are parenting in this day in age. And in the age of social media, you have an added measure to deal with, but you know what will work best for your kid, but know you have to discipline.  Handle your kids the way you see fit, because if you don’t the system will. I know I see it every day!