Family Values Not Heir Apparent
Published March 11, 2007
Some seventh grade girls in Denver and Boulder were caught recently sending photos of
themselves over their cell phones. Naked photos. To their boyfriends.
If you don’t have a problem with that, you should. We all should.
Maybe it was the age-old gang mentality that took over and turned well-meaning, ethical
kids into compliant, eager-to-please followers who giggled at the idea of taking the nude
shots – and only now that they realize those photos are crossing the continent via the
internet – do they wish they’d never done it. Then again, maybe they recognize the values of
American Idol contestant Antonella Barba more readily than their own family’s. Maybe
families are making their values too difficult to spot.
I suppose before parents decide how they’re going to share their ethics and ideals with
kids they first have to know what those ideals are. Fundamentally, what do you believe is
ethical, moral and good? And I don’t mean in the dutiful, religious sense of the words. I’m
talking about basic education of what we believe is healthy and right for our kids. In this
case, why aren’t we teaching them to respect and honor themselves? Celebrate their bodies
and their uniqueness, yes. Exploit them by offering them up to anyone who wants a peek, no
way.
There’s something wrong that we’re raising kids who get so caught up in the moment with
a group of friends that their behavior spirals out of the realm of acceptable social conduct. It
happens every day – a group of kids with too much time on their hands and no adults
checking in is far more likely to wind up engaging in risky behavior. And by risky, I mean
stupid. So stupid there’s no way to take back the photo of your beautiful 13 year-old
daughter now circulating the internet.
All kids want to have a sense of belonging, and if they don’t get it from us they’ll seek it
somewhere else. Gangs are filled with boys who crave a connection. Teenage girls seek love
in the beds of men, searching in vain for something that’s missing from their young lives.
Orphans in Africa are willing to pick up assault rifles at age five out of the sheer hope that it
means someone will care about them. They don’t.
If it seems I’m exaggerating the extent of the seventh grade girls’ offense, so be it.
Because it illustrates the lengths that our children will go just to belong.
Is it possible, just maybe, that these girls and their naked photos were left alone without
adult supervision for too long? That maybe every girl’s parent thought another adult was in
charge? Perhaps their parents fell under the teenage spell and truly believe that twelve and
thirteen year-olds are capable and deserving of so much independence? Perhaps they
naively assumed their daughters could never hatch such a plan. Perhaps you’ve thought
similar things.
Research shows (and school teachers can attest) that kids are experimenting earlier and
earlier with things that used to be more common in college or, at least high school. Now our
middle schools are fertile soil. I like to think that’s a good thing because parents are much
more engaged up till about fifth grade, so maybe the trick is to educate them early and guide
them to a healthier, more loving role as they enter the teen years. It’d be a lot easier to keep
the freight train that is a teenager on the right track, rather than try and haul their caboose
back on board after they’ve derailed.
I’m sure the family’s of these girls – and others like them – are wrestling with these
thoughts as they reconcile their roles in the entire mess. But then again, I always have been
an optimist.