My daughter brought home her school newspaper the other day. It was full of the usual articles about sports, club news and activities. It was the commentary page that caught my eye. I have to commend the writer. Her piece was well written. It is the subject matter that gives me pause.
This young lady opined that Twitter — the social media site where users share short messages in 140 characters or less called tweets – belongs to teenagers. She included the hashtag #youaretooold and stated that it is “hard enough living in the same household as some, but imagine if they knew what you were doing on Twitter.”
She said the site provides a haven for teens to vent to other teens and that parents have no business on it.
Her reasoning:
1. Teens would have to show parents how to get on Twitter.
2. Parents would have a problem about the times tweets are being posted, i.e. during school hours and late at night.
3. If parents actually do get connected to Twitter, then teenagers will find another site to get away from them and abandon Twitter like they did Facebook.
I read the article four times to makes sure I was seeing what I thought I saw; this young student is basically telling her and all other parents to butt out of our children’s lives.
I’m not naïve enough to think I know every aspect of my children’s lives. That is how it should be. If my parents had had an inkling of half the things I was up to in my teens, then I wouldn’t be here to write this column (I was very “spirited”, let’s leave it at that).
However, the big message I would like to pass on to this young lady is this: you do not get to pick and choose when you can be parented. Some of us take our duties seriously, and now more than ever, we parents are trying to raise responsible adults. Adults that will be prepared to take their place in society and succeed in their chosen path. Sorry if that interferes with your tweeting, and snap chatting. One solution is for the parents to get you a phone that only texts, and have talks. Better you stop tweeting to your followers, and open up the lines of face to face communications in your home. #compromise
Z. Carlson is married with two teenage children. She works part time. Read her here on momaha.com
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