Archive for the ‘Other Renegade Shit’ Category

  • Social Networking for kids?

    Since the day I knew I wanted to get pregnant with my third kid, after a very long 11 year ABSOLUTE REFUSAL to even consider it (because I was smart once upon a time), I signed up at BabyCenter.com to receive weekly emails about getting pregnant and having babies and all that shit I’d blissfully forgotten about. That was over eight years ago.  I still get those emails but they have changed a bit over the years, from My Pregnancy This Week to My Baby This Week and on up, skipping My Serious Brat This Week and My Boy Who Thinks He’s A Girl This Year, going to My Big Kid This Week. I think I’ve read about three of those emails since 2002 but because I’m an authentic Renegade Mom I haven’t bothered to “Unsubscribe” yet. About every other year something in the subject line catches my attention so I’ll open it, click the link and “read more about” whatever the hell it is that I already knew. Yesterday was one of those days. The thing that caught my attention was “Your 7-Year-Old: Social Networking? Already?”

    social networking kids renegade mom

    THIS is social networking for kids!

    “Should you resist or give in to the craze for junior social networking sites featuring bears, penguins, and other animated digital creatures? It’s a personal decision, and one every parent will face sooner or later. One of the best ways to decide is to spend time yourself exploring these sites, with and without your child. Get to know how they work and how kids like to use them.”

    To this I say a big loud FUCK YOU.

    “Though you may wish to ignore the whole trend, these sites aren’t going away any time soon. In fact, they’re reshaping playtime. It’s best if you can hold off as long as possible before your child becomes immersed in an online (and sedentary) world, but by second grade more and more kids are getting involved.”

    Reshaping playtime? What the fuckity fuck?

    “If, like Webkinz, for example, the site involves real toys apart from the virtual counterparts, encourage your child to play with them, too.”

    Too? Too?

    Maybe it’s my old Waldorf roots reading shit this but what? All the social networking kids need, especially 7-year olds, is PLAYING. Inside and outside. Running. Throwing. Imagining. With other kids. With REAL toys. With sticks and rocks and bugs and swings and balls and dolls. Drawing and reading and painting and making huge messes and asking too many questions and showing you stupid stuff over and over again and bugging the CRAP out of you!

    I realize as I write this that they’re not specifically meaning social networking in the sense that adults use social networking (ie Facebook and Twitter etc.) but I have seen kids in kindergarten with online profiles and it gets my yoga/pajama pants in a wad. This Renegade Mom will actually make dinner every night before I let My Big Kid on FaceCrack or do any social networking on a big glowing rectangle.

    ~RM2

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    2010.05.03 / 8 responses / Category: Other Renegade Shit

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