The Unfortunate Discovery
Here’s what’s going to happen when you find out that girls are sending nude pictures to your son. First you’re going to ask yourself where in the h-e-double hockey sticks you’ve been that you missed this for so long…since you just found a million months worth of nudes on your child’s phone.
Then you’re going to nearly lose your mind asking what this world is coming to and how can you go back in time and re-visit the day that you ever let your kids have a cell phone.
Then you’re going to sit down with your son and discuss the fact that there are not only moral responsibilities in this world, but legal expectations of respect and privacy and if these pictures don’t get deleted in the next 30 seconds, I will kill you right here and now. Or some version of that. Then you’re going to have a revelation about said responsibility and your child’s role in the whole nude picture show, and wonder what pictures of your son are on the girl’s phone. Then you’re going to cry.
And somewhere along the way you’re going to contact the young lady’s mother and ask her to do a phone check. Please and thank you, and oh, by the way…I’m not liking the things I’m seeing coming from your end, but you probably won’t like things from our end any better. Then you’ll tell her that we will make a better effort to control the flow of passion from the young man’s side, if she would be kind enough to do the same from her end.
The Uncomfortable Conversation
Next, find a time to sit down with the young lady. Tell her that you’ve seen more of her than you really cared to, and though she thinks she’s looking pretty good right now, right out of the shower, or sending topless goodnight photos to the man of her dreams, that she needs to know that my eyes saw it… and so might some others. Tell her that you expect more of her, and of course that you expect more of your son. Tell her that she should expect more of herself than a steady stream of boob shots to keep the boy interested. Then tell her that you were young and stupid at one time, too, and how you thank your lucky stars that there were no cell phones to capture it for forever. Remind her that if she wants a future beyond high school, to look beyond high school and aim higher than that naked meme of sexual suggestions. Yes, I saw that, too.
Holding Onto Hope
And finally, you’ll lose a lot of sleep over this one. You’ll wish you could dig a bunker underground and hide your boys in there till the end times, and even slightly consider choosing a mail order bride or possibly an arranged marriage. And you’ll digest the fact that your son is growing and so is his exposure to the world. And you’ll hope that you taught enough of the good basics that one day he will hear your voice in his head and be reminded that he is good, he is born of hope and is capable of more than he can even imagine right now. Because after all, his mind has been muddled of late with peep show images and maybe some internal conflict. But I doubt it.
So you’ll have the hard talks. You’ll say what you found doesn’t fit with the values of your family, and as long as he is a member of this family, living in this house, that he doesn’t have to like it, but that he will respect it. Then you’ll figure out the millionth way of limiting and monitoring the cell phone situation and hope that this time something works. But if nothing else, you’ve made a stand, you’ve announced your intentions to enforce the rules, and you’re going to start over from here. Hopefully the young Romeo and Juliet will too.
