Taking my meme to heart

I feel so loved! I have been tagged for my first meme! I gladly accept Rural Writer’s tag and I can offer up some personal-mom’s eye view on this.

The folks at Blogger Power are asking all the bloggers of the blogosphere to unite to help safeguard our children. I for one am jumping on board. Let me explain why.

I have 4 children and though the younger 3 could give a crap less about the internet, my oldest is different. He has had the chance to use it at school in the library and this year, the fifth grade has required more and more research via the world wide web.

I use the web everyday and it scares even me sometimes.

So imagine my fright when I got a letter home last year letting me know my dearest Bug had been banned from the school’s computers for viewing inappropriate content. The situation was that a friend showed my son how to google “hot girls”

Yeah.
Do that.
See what turns up.

I don’t care that the friend has older siblings, I don’t care that it wasn’t my son’s idea. I care that until that day, he had no idea how to google anything. He didn’t even know what google was and I LIKED IT THAT WAY. This year my tween is asking to play online games, to fit in, to have something in common with the other guys. I have checked the site where he wants to play and I approve. It’s interesting. But it’s frightful that he knows how to google lots of things now. It’s scary that he knows what a “hot girl” is. It’s scary that at his last Dr. visit, our wonderful pediatrician talked to him about the beginning of puberty.

For the first time, the internet is scaring me.

Maybe I have lived in my own little happy, dark corner of cyber world, filling my days with work, networking, and blogging but not anymore.
Now I have to worry about what he might turn up if he finds any “hot girls”.

Now I have to worry that these sites will be easier to get into than the bottle of tylenol in my bathroom cabinet.

Now I have to worry that he will get more than he bargained for from the world wide web.

So I am asking the webmasters of adult sites, please don’t give this momma four times over more grey hair:

BTW, I am tagging the Domestic Slackstress

(originally posted on Blogger Power)

Please require a password-protected login before allowing even free
access to explicit adult content. We understand that selling porn is your
business and we respect your right to make a legal living. But understand our
legitimate concerns and work with us. You already have the “warning adult
content” on your websites. Yet kids, who are not legal customers of your
product, ignore the warning. So to prevent them from having direct access to
explicit images, texts and sounds, the simplest way is to have a
password-protected login. No more “free tours” before a visitor supplies basic
information.