1. I big puffy heart social media; it has allowed me the opportunity to chat with you on Facebook, see your lives on Instagram, and hoard on Pinterest but ~ and this is a big BUT ~ there are a lot of things that are inappropriate for social media. Things like breaking up, drunk texting, and notifying people of a family member’s death. It happened. As in a Georgia police department notified a mother of the death of her 30~year~old son via Facebook. Shaking my head The police department’s Facebook page isn’t even identified as being run by or affiliated with the police department {a picture of a rapper is being used for the avatar and the name on the account is one that is used for investigative purposes ~ “Misty Hancock”}. Seriously The family thought the email was a cruel joke {1. It had ended up in their “other” box on Facebook and 2. The message looked unofficial}
The department stated that they’d tried to contact the family using traditional means but couldn’t so they used Facebook as a last resort. Blank stare OK, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say they couldn’t contact the family using the telephone or a physical address, are they seriously trying to say that it never occurred to anyone to set up an official Facebook account for the police department so that people wouldn’t receive messages from a “Misty Hancock”?
2. And speaking of Facebook, a friend of mine reposted a video of some kids, roughly aged 8 to 12, “twerking”. If you don’t know what that is, look it up, I’ll wait. The first part of the video showed young boys dancing with each other and then a group of young girls were added to the dance party. Do you need a mental scrubbing? I know I do. This posting came just after I’d read an article about a 9~year~old rapper’s family being investigated by protective services because of some sexually suggestive videos in which the boy appears. There are so many things wrong with these two stories:
- It is never appropriate to sexualize children; dancing in a sexually suggestive manner or pretending to smack the butt of a woman is neither cute nor funny. Parents, you can’t wonder why people see kids as sexual playthings when you’re encouraging them to shake their behinds while being taped.
- Adults are laughing and cheering these kids on like they’re doing something special and/or unique but how many of these adults would be cheering as wildly if their kid won a Spelling Bee or was a Mathlete? It’s about priorities and these adults/parents have theirs in the wrong places.
- Drug use is not a playing matter. Too many people have lost their lives to drugs, so phrases like “Coke ain’t a bad word” is irresponsible and stupid. What parent wants their kid to grow up to be a user?
We need to be encouraging our children to:
- live a Christ~centered life ~ enough said
- get an education ~ education is the key to escaping poverty
- make life enhancing decisions ~ be wise and use good judgement
- be healthy ~ eating right and being physically active is important throughout all phases of life; dance is a great form of exercise but keep it appropriate
- create and maintain wealth ~ I’m not talking about a couple of dollars to get you from the beginning to the end of the month, I’m talking about the kind of wealth that is passed from generation to generation. The kind of wealth that gets a family off welfare and into a position of self sustainability.
Parents need to do better. We as a society need to do better.
What had you scratchin’ your head this week?
