My Facebook image shows me topless. I've edited it to not show "anything", but then, given that it was taken when I was four, there was nothing to show. Dh thinks it is suggestive and I should change it. It was an innocent photo, taken in an innocent age.It illustrates for me the change in the times. Looking at old headlines, many of the ones written in the early 1900s could have been taken straight from a newspaper yesterday. But mass media, technology, and the Internet has forever changed parenting. This is not the same world in which my parents raised me.
Think I overreact? Perhaps you are not familiar with ChatRoulette? While I'm aware of the dangers of the Internet, the ease with which a child can innocently come across images no child should see, an article on Blogher opened my eyes to to more than I knew existed. Evidently, anyone can go on this website when bored, (and children today often are since they are not needed to chop wood and gather eggs) and meet a stranger. Radical Parenting has written what parents should know about how children can see naked strangers in the comfort of your own home. Great.
And this week the news that less than one mile from my house lives a man who likes little boys and was convicted of sexual child abuse.
Has the world changed that much or are we just more aware of it through media?
6 comments:
The only thing we can depend upon is change. Too bad. But we are learning more about protecting our young, as well.
Um...no, the world hasn't changed. Have you read my posts on this subject? My pedophile lived less than a mile from my house. But as to your picture, I never would have guessed that the young girl in the picture was topless. Not from the picture on the blog. I would have guessed a swim top or tube top. Is it suggestive? Not really. IHMO
I look at it and see an impish little girl wondering if it might be fun to turn the sprinkler on mom and dad on a hot summer day.
I guess I first met you some two years later or so, the beginning of a grade school friendship that I remember well.
I love old pictures like this one. Someday soon I'm going to have to sit down with my dad and dig through the piles of shoe boxes looking for some photographic gems.
Jenn, yes, it has always been necessary, but how to protect is changing.
Arby - oh, my dear, yes I have read. I'm sorry. I can see your point clearly. So, do we just hear about it more today? Since there are more people, are there just, percentage wise, more bad people? Or were there always a lot, and many kept quiet? Has technology, though it is a benefit to many good people, also made it easier for these evil, terrible people like your pedophile? Thanks for writing this.
Hey Mark! Old photos are fun, and yes, so are old friendships.
Both perhaps...
Aloha from Hawaii my Friend!
Comfort Spiral
I think the picture is beautiful and innocent. I'm not convinced that the world is changing. We've made many, many strides in the right direction (away from bigotry, hatred, slavery, etc.). I think the media has made us much more aware of what has unfortunately always been an issue.
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