Internet: Good Vs. Bad
Rebecca, Dana, Maggie and I discuss the perils of “parenting in the Google age” in the following Momversation episode:
One of the things that was brought up was those “find your neighborhood sex predator” websites. I hate those things. I think they perpetuate fear. But then again, I’ve seen that Dateline: To Catch A Predator show and realize that there are big reasons to be scared. The volume of men out to take advantage of girls my daughter’s age is just frightening!
I know people look at those types of sites, but I am wondering what compels them, how does it make them feel, how does it change their actions or decisions?
If you don’t go to those websites, why don’t you? Is ignorance bliss? Are you being negligent as a parent?
Tags: dana loesch, dateline, girls gone child, maggie mason, mamalogues, mighty girl, momversation, rebecca woolf, video
10 Responses to “Internet: Good Vs. Bad”
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Only when someone mentions it, via email or like this post, do I ever use the predator lookup.
I gotta think those are the people that are following the law because of their criminal background and probably not the ones to worry as much about, like those are the morons who were 20 and dating a 17 year old and their girlfriend’s parents got pissed.
While I’d definitely warn my daughter about anyone living close, that’s likely about as far as I’d venture down that road.
I must say, looking at the pix of those people reminds me of living in West Virginia.
I think you made the best point, about MySpace being used as a powertrip to mess with your fellow high school friends’ sense of belonging. Your daughter can be one of the few to avoid choosing Top Friends on her own page, with a simple statement about how she loves all of her friends equally.
It doesn’t take much to become the person that everyone wants to emulate, sometimes all that is needed is the courage to make a different choice.
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I do check and am always disgusted to see that such scary people live so close. it’s so disheartening.
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The thing about the predator websites is they generally equate the 23 year old who had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend or the 30 year old coach who had consensual sex with his 16 year old student as the same as the priest who raped 8 year old boys and the stepdad or uncle who sodomized his 11 year old stepdaughter/niece and the guy who brutally breaks into his neighbor’s house and brutally rapes the female inhabitant at gunpoint with her husband watching.
I’m not saying that the first two guy’s aren’t bad or didn’t do something bad, although there have been some famous cases of one person going to prison and then having to register for this thing for being just barely over age and having sex with someone not much under it. But, definitely an educator who breaks that trust should be punished and, in most cases should go to prison. However, I don’t think anyone sees Mary Kay Laterno as the same threat as the stereotypical rapist. And for the general public, it creates panic situations when there doesn’t need to be and, because so many people know the lists notes no difference in offenses and might even know someone who had to register, makes us not be scared when we should be. I know some states have ratings of more dangerous or less dangerous, but I think it should have some indicator of the potential victims. For example, if a pedophile moved close to me, I would want to know whether he or she had a pattern of targeting 8 year old boys or 13 year old girls. Some sexual predators target the elderly. It would be good to know for be careful for senior citizens. See what I mean.
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For Christmas, I intended to give a friend’s 12 year old daughter a subscription to World of Warcraft. She loves playing the game every time she’s over, creating characters and just running around with my character and seeing everything in there. Whenever she’s playing, I disable all chat options and set hers up to auto-decline any group invites not from me.
Unfortunately, her father has decided he doesn’t want her playing it because his other daughter was “approached” by an older man who happens to play World of Warcraft.
I’ve been playing WoW for 3+ years now. A lot of that time has actually been spent on a female character and I’ve never been approached by anyone. Maybe somehow I just naturally avoid wherever predators would lurk, but even so, with the safety options that are possible, I don’t think there’s any danger. The girl knows now to share any personal information online and that she’s only to group with myself or my wife in the game.
I think the father is over-reacting, but I had to change my gift idea for the girl to a mere gift card to go along with his wishes. There are not 11 million pedophiles running around World of Warcraft and there are ample ways to protect a child that wishes to play the game.
Oops, sorry for multiple comments. That should read “the girl knows NOT to share any personal information”
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I’ve never actually looked at a map of sex offenders in my area (I don’t have kids, so I’m not particularly concerned) but you made me want to look out of curiosity, and wow…that’s pretty crazy. I’d probably warn my kids that those people are out there, but I don’t want to instill constant fear, like my mom did to my sister and me.
Every man we ever met–friends’ dads, neighbors, my mom’s own boyfriend, even–was a child molester in her eyes. May explain why my younger sister is so distrusting of guys.
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Sometimes it’s the people we personally know who hurt, or try to hurt, us the most. They are not listed anywhere. They look perfectly normal on the outside. What about them?
There’ no end to where you could look to be careful.
The best thing I can do for my kids is to love love love them and be the best I can with them, so they will love themselves and won’t let anyone do anything they don’t like to them.
Oh, and teach them how to fight back. I’m taking my kid so a self-defense class (Aikido), and my second one will go too.
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Being a victim of molestation myself has heightened my awareness for my daughters’ well being. And even though I have never logged on to the predator location sites, I am one who appreciates those sites that warn us of potential problems as I am a “better safe than sorry” type of person … especially when it comes to children, my children or not. There is a fine line when it comes to paranoid tendencies but who is it to judge where that line is drawn? In my generation and those previous there wasn’t ENOUGH awareness or education or information … and although today we have the flip side of maybe too much information it does help create a higher awarness and helps us beter equip ourselves to protect those most vulnerable. I’m not saying we need to get out our pitch forks and torches and go raid those predators’ homes …. I’m saying that those who are parents just need to keep their eyes open and keep on communicating with your kids.
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