My wife mentioned this story the other day and I went reading. Apparently a teen girl was out on MySpace (grrrr) and received a friend invite from a boy. What she was unaware of is that this boy was fictitous and would eventually turn on her and begin posting nasty things about her. She committed suicide, due in part we assume, to this activity. What is truly horrifying is that the boy was apparently the creation of an adult woman from her neighborhood and some friends and/or family. Now granted, we as a nation will probably never get the whole story, but based on what I've read...a few thoughts come to mind.
Okay...first of all...let me say I am sincerely sorrowful for this girl's parents. They have lost a child and no parent should ever have to bury their child.
Now that I've gotten that taken care of...here I go, albeit as respectfully as I can.
Suicide is the pansy way out of dealing with problems. It is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, which will in turn create problems for those left behind. All too often, the story gets out that the person had problems with life not being fair or some other excuse...NEWS FLASH...LIFE ISN'T FAIR...get a helmet and grow a skin. People can be rude, insensitive, downright mean and just generally crappy to each other quite easily. To allow the crass-ness of humanity to cause you to give away the gift of life is to buy into other people's opinions and/or thoughts. Guess what...we all have opinions and like butts, they all stink. Nothing in life is worth killing one's self over...period. I have a loving wife and 4 kids I love more than anything else; however...none of them are worth killing myself over. Dying to protect, yes...suicide, not even on a good day.
We aren't going to mention that children shouldn't be on MySpace...according to one of the stories, her parents mentioned several times to stop using it and stay away from the fictitious person, yet she persisted. Mayhap, stronger measures were needed...there are many methods for securing internet traffic and preventing access to questionable and/or merely unwanted content. Don't read any of the above to in any way excuse the...the...(My wife will appreciate the difficulty I'm having in controlling my language...a personal struggle) individual/s from any wrongdoing.
Now I've done it...I've breached the part where my paternal instinct to protect children takes over. If after all the investigation finishes, these "people" (read...vindictive buttholes) are determined to have been directly responsible for the harassment and/or culpable in the suicide of this girl...they should be dragged into the street and shot. Children are incapable of defending themselves and for that reason, we have to guard them with such aggressive responses that people think they've been tossed into a pit of rabid wolverines on crack. For a parent to even contemplate the perpetration of such a hoax on a child is unthinkable. There is absolutely no excuse...I don't care what the child may or may not have said about your child. Now, if you witnessed your child being physically attacked by another child, you as the parent are well within your rights to drag the offender to their parents and relay what you witnessed. Will that solve the problem? Maybe not, but that is as far as you can go. Again...exceptions..."A Time To Kill" is about the father of a girl who was raped and murdered, who then goes on to extract revenge. I can understand the emotion and reaction. I can't say what I would do in that case, but it would probably be similar. I haven't seen anything that indicates the girl who killed herself was physically abusive to the woman's daughter anywhere. So we are back to this happening over things said...
As I mentioned earlier, we will probably never get the whole story. However, all of us parents should take from this sad event several warnings:
1. Be involved in your child's life...but don't try to live it for them or protect them from life. As "The Princess Bride" said, "Life is pain." The pains in life are what make the joys that much more intense. Everytime I am reminded of my son in the hospital with IV's being pumped full of anti-seizure medication at 10 months old, I smile at the realization that it was a freak occurance and he is healthy as a horse. Or when I think of my baby's feet purple and bruised because her blood sugar wouldn't normalize and they kept sticking her to check it at mere days old, but I see her now running or dancing or giggling.
2. The internet is a truly dangerous place...wonderful, but dangerous nonetheless. The grasslands of Africa are beautiful...at least, from what I've seen on TV...but they are also deadly. There are animals that can kill us without so much as a second glance. The internet is similar. The collective knowledge of mankind is available, in a nearly instantaneous format; yet so are the sick minds that prey on others.
3. As a parent, protecting my child is just that. I would gladly die to protect any of my children, but that doesn't give me the right to turn the tables and harm another's child. To pass beyond protection into the willful attack on another's child is beyond the pale. Anyone who would pursue these actions, should be stricken of their children and required to seek the most strenous help we can find. We can't fight our children's battles for them...we can only act as backup.
Now I imagine people will disagree and that is okay. Get your own blog and post your own opinions...see earlier for my thoughts on opinions.
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