Parents; are we still not teaching our children how to honour, and respect themselves, and others on social media???

Here I go again with a follow up post…these are becoming more regular than not these days. I had lunch with a girlfriend yesterday and we of course discussed the YouTube fiasco of the woman who aired all her family’s entire financial ruin story with the world. It’s still at the forefront of my mind, because I just cannot get over that, or comprehend why. Why a person would divulge soooooo much personal information to strangers? Like I get anxious depositing cheques into the bank, and applying for mortgages wondering the entire time if people are thinking: “Wow, I would have thought being a lead actor on a TV series for eleven years would pay better?” Well guess what friends, this is not a US series, it is Canadian, and there is a HUGE DISCREPANCY between the value of a Canadian leading man and an American one. See, here is a prime example of how, if I wanted to, I could totally turn this blog into an “oversharing” with too many private details about my life in five seconds flat. But I’m not going to do that for two reasons. 1) that is not what this blog is about, and 2) this post is actually about parenting my friends.

Anyway, the conversation then turned to social media conduct for young people, and how so many of them are not using it appropriately. My friend shared with me a situation currently happening in Nova Scotia that she had read about in the Globe and Mail yesterday morning about a group of 15-18 year old boys who were “trading” nudes of girls as young as 13 in a private online group.

WHAT THE HELL???

Are you kidding me right now? See, this is going to take me back to that place where I stand firm; parents need to talk to sons way more about the correct way to be in the world. Especially when it comes to honoring young women as human beings and not as objects, or commodities to be TRADED! Like what??? I get it, back in the day boys used to have a porn magazine or movie and when they were good and done with it they would pass it along to a buddy, who would then pass it along, and around the world that one magazine would go. But, there is a huge difference in passing those nudes around in that those were usually consenting adults who made the choice to be paid and published naked. These are girls who for whatever reason, one that I will never, ever understand, have decided to trust a boy and send him a nude of herself for his pleasure.

Why? Who is in charge of these girls? Especially a 13 year old sending nudes. I can’t even with this. Parents of daughters you need to be doing a much better job here. Like why is a 13 year old using a phone that you don’t have the password for? That is insane to me. You are the parent, she is the child. CHILD. Not a young woman, not somebody worthy of full and utter trust. Not yet. She’s too young. She doesn’t yet know how the world works, or how to operate safely within in it. That’s what you’re here for. To guide her. So do your damn job. Ugh.

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a hundred thousand times: I am not a prude. I love sex. I think sex is one of the greatest ways to spend any time of any day ever. I also firmly believe that whatever consensual activities a couple deems as fun, cool, and hot for them in the bedroom is totally fine. Unless of course your husband is in his 60’s and likes to stick coke bottles up his butt and then gets it stuck and tells you he “fell on it in the shower” and you, sadly, little me-maw, believe him. But I digress, this isn’t about the weird things people get up to all alone that find them in a hospital emergency room. This is about boys tricking girls into doing things that they think are private, and girls getting the short end of that stick, without fail, over and over and over again. Parents. Do a better job with your daughters. Teach them that sexual liberty, and confidence is not the same, AT ALL, as sexual promiscuity. Sexual promiscuity will always, ALWAYS come back and bite your daughter in the ass. So for the love of God teach them difference.

You all know I have three girls, Yannick and I have seriously hammered it into their heads how one nude photo isn’t one photo, it has the potential to become a nude for every single person that that guy follows on every social media platform he is on. And the other super fun thing about your one nude, or that fun little video of your daughter giving her boyfriend a blow job; it is out there FOREVER. Unlike a photo which eventually from “use” becomes worn out and must end up in the trash, photos store on devices for ever and never tatter, so they are incredibly easy to distribute, as the article in the Globe said; “like baseball cards.”

I’m closing in on 30 years with my man, we’ve had a ton of sex, some of it in some super hot public places, but what he’s never been given by me is a nude, or had a video made; sexy provocative photos, yes. Flat out nudes leaving nothing to the imagination. No. “Why not Shantelle, you’re in a committed, serious long term relationship? Don’t you trust Yannick to keep that stuff safe?”

I’ll tell you why not; I don’t give those to him because you know what “giving” it to a man does? It makes them lazy. It makes them not have to romance you, or woo you, or put any effort in whatsoever to make love to you. Because when they get horny, as they’re known to do they can open their phone and “satisfy” themselves without holding off to get it from you when they get back to you. Now, I’m not naive, I know that men will masturbate with or without a photo of their lovers, but for me I like to play a little hard to get with my man, to tease, and make him put in some effort to flirt with me over the course of the day, bring me flowers and take me for dinner. It is all in the art of the chase young ladies. If you hand a man the goods without making him put in any effort what so ever I’m going to tell you what is going to happen. He’s going to trade you like a commodity and then not pick you in the end anyway. So if you’re giving him nudes, and trying sooooooo hard to win his approval and fancy you’ll end up doing quite the opposite. You’ll end up diminishing your own worth and he will in the end pick the girl who makes him step up his game and work for her affection and honor of having her naked body in his bed and his life.

Parents teach your sons from a young age how to treat girls like ladies, and for please, please, PLEASE parents of girls teach them the art of flirting, self worth and faith. Faith that if you hold what is of greatest value, your virtue, dear and true, the right man will come along and love, cherish and honor it rather than throw it around like it is of no value at all.

This has been a PSA, you’re welcome.

xo SB