Parents Vs Paedophiles

My parents don’t do email. In fact they don’t do computers. Dad is now approaching 70 and Mum is in her early 60s, but as I’ve said to them many a time, age is not an issue.

But to technophobes as them i.e. the TV remote is about as far as they will go, the computer is an anachronism. It’s of the future generation’s. Theirs is the world of record players and landlines. TVs which dominated a room. Rooms with flock wallpaper and floral carpets.

Given this I would never hit the problem that the ‘Yoof’ of today face. Are my parents my friends? Should I add them on Facebook?

What I find interesting is that some people will add strangers whom they may have only met once round a friend’s house or worse, never met. But parents are a no-no: they cannot and should not be added. But let’s be honest, I wouldn’t have wanted my parents to know what I got/get upto. So why would I expect it to be any different for anyone in their teens. The question is whether that child is savvy enough to understand that the intentions that parent’s hold are generally well-meant but can be poor in execution.

What is more important than having the child as a friend in Facebook is having an open enough relationship to know that your values are shared to a great degree. And that if the proverbial really does hit the fan the child will come to you as a parent is the source of solutions and not just punishments.

What sparked this diatribe? This article by the Beeb. And for a slightly lighthearted look at it…there’s this on youtube (NSFW)