Sexting

Ok so now "sexting" has become a possible means by which teens can be bullied or harrassed?

According to recent media reports, teens are sending sms messages with sexually explicit content, or even photos of themselves, to boyfriends who, when the relationship fails, choose to send them to the girl's friends, family or other males at the school.

Or apparently some boys get a mate "to secret themselves away" in a hidden place so they can film sexual activity between the other boy and his girlfriend and then they can do what they like with these videos.

What the hell is going on????

I mean sure teens have always used various means by which to flirt with one another and yep when relationships go pear-shaped people don't always shower themselves in glory with the way they behave.

But really, what is going on here? Why is that these smart techno teens of today don't see how easy it is for their trust to breached and abused and the far ranging implications for them if someone does breach their trust? What are they thinking sms-ing compromising images of themselves to their boyfriend? As for text messages of an explicit nature, have we learned nothing from the lessons Shane Warne has tried to share with us? I mean it wasn't like we had to get it the first time, he did afterall give us more than opportunity to heed and understand the message!!

It is all kind of sad really. It seems that is just getting harder and harder for our kids, especially our girls, to be just that KIDS. All too soon they are feeling peer pressure to wear make up, to dress like a "mini-adult" or sometimes, lets be honest, like mini-hookers in some cases. The children's underwear department host's bra tops and matching knickers and allegedly according to some mums, even g-string underwear??? Are you serious? Why are we raising kids who at that tender age are even going to care if the top matches or the undies, or even that they need to wear a "bra top" when they have a chest to rival a pancake??

As a girl at that age, maybe it was just me or even my generation, what a bunch of totally unsophisticated, naieve munchikins we were. I can remember in year 7 getting into trouble at school because we trying to do those "up their cazaly" football marks on the backs of the guys we hung with - not sure why we got into trouble whether it was because we were unladylike (shocking I know!!) or because we may have injured the guys or ourselves on their watch! And for those really really out there times there was the age old kiss chasey - where you had to run like the wind when the guy you didn't like was after you, or trip and fall with the style of many a leading actress in the typical horror flick, when the guy you really fancied was chasing you!

Maybe the boys were being raised in an environment of more respect for girls as seen at home and maybe as a result of the kinds of music videos now plastered everywhere on a weekend morning, not being available to them back then. Maybe we girls were the product of raging female lib parents??

Although my Mum was certainly not like that. My Dad was a pretty strong personality though. But I always remember having a strong sense of self respect. Not that I didn't suffer the usual teen angst of self consciousness and feeling like everyone in the room was looking and judging me when I walked in, when in actual fact, was the reality was they probably didn't even notice me!! However I do remember having a strong view of me and what was acceptable and what was not.

I can remember a camp in primary school, must have been year 7 I think. We had a kind of young dude teacher we all thought was pretty cool...but he elevated his status big time when he brought his younger brother to the camp to help out. He must have been a uni student or some such I think but he had almost shoulder length hair and played the guitar. Oh you can picture it now, can't you? Like a scene out of grease, these 12-13 year old girls sitting around the camp fire postively glowing "in love" with the teacher's hot younger brother as he sat playing guitar. I recall him playing "living next door to Alice"...big mistake on his part - that became the camp theme song - for the girls at least. The cue to sit and drool while trying to sing and feast our eyes on this addonis before us! Kind of funny now looking back on it!

In high school we had the group of friends where invariably you tend to all being going out with one of the group. There was a guy in this group who as year older than me....we were going out together when I was about 15 I reckon...for all of like 6 weeks! Yeah long term relationships back then...however long term enough for him to decide to broach the conversation of the prospect of indulging in some horizontal dancing!!

Well poor bastard, don't think he had any idea of just what a wrong idea that was when he was dealing with me - by the time my tirade had finished I reckon his ears would have been ringing for days! It started with "Excuse me, just what kind of girl do you think I am?" and rolled on from there like the proverbial train derailment with accompanying wreckage along the way!

Granted one of my friend at around the time claims to have "done it" in the back of a horse float with one of her the guys from her horse riding club - but well you never know do you really? Sure she had the hickeys but hickeys are a long way from "doin' it"

The thought of taking photos of ourselves and giving them to these guys - not even in the same library let alone the same page of our thinking back then!

Hubby works in an environment where he sees too often girls who have such a low self esteem and their self respect is so lacking that in essence they are letting these boys do what they want to them in order to feel valued or accepted. The conversations hubby has had the misfortune of overhearing, can only be described as tragically sad and soul destroying.

I know that it is an issue of self esteem but it pulls at my heart that these girls feel it is ok for boys to treat them this way. That somehow this will gain them acceptance! I want to shout at them "you are better than this, you deserve better than this, this is not ok!"

"You do not have to do things you are not comfortable with or behave in ways that are self-degrading just to fit in"

"You are beautiful just the way you are, if this moron can't see that, he doesn't deserve you, kick him in the cods and go find someone who is worthy of you"

Sadly that doesn't happen and these girls find themselves on a slippery slope that often has far reaching implications in the longer term.

So fellow parents - we have a war to win.

Parents of daughters - build their self-esteem and their self respect. Have them honour who they are and their right to be treated correctly. Have them understand the loser that bags them for not wanting to sleep with them or do this or that "for them" is a loser with a "L" and they should run as fast as humanly possible away from people like this - these losers are not worthy of them! Have them also value and acknowledge those boys that do treat them with the respect they deserve.

Parents of boys - build their self esteem and self respect too. BUT teach them that they must respect the female of the species in the same way in which they respect themselves. That they should think of how people treat their mother when they think of the females in their lives. Would they like people to treat their mother in a way that was disrespectful? No, and so they should treat the ladies in their lives in the same way in which they like to see their mothers treated.

Master 16 surprised last year when relaying the story of a girl who he is good friends with that asked him if he liked her more than a friend. He replied he did, he liked her as a "very good, one of his best friends" friend but he didn't like her in a girlfriend kind of way.With all those raging hormones, it was good to see he valued her friendship and her as a person enough to be completely honest with her! Ok so maybe it might have something to do with the fact his mother is a black belt and would seriously kick his arse if she found out he was treating a girl with anything but his utmost respect!

The Rarity of Normality

So according to recent reports, todays internet technology is repsonsible for an increase in violence in our younger folk, places like facebook and myspace and everything in between apparently.

Add to that the regularly touted statistics that only about 2 kids in a class of 28 regularly sit down to an evening meal with their family - and well it all paints a pretty depressing picture.

Perhaps it is the social breakdown of the family unit, of community spirit and caring for the welfare and well being of others in our community that actually serves to generate the problems we are seeing today, perhaps this is more the culprit than facebook or myspace or even youtube!

All of this, and a recent birthday of Master 16, had me contemplating just how lucky we are, here in our household - I don't know if we are the rarity of normality (as it was when we kids grew up) or perhaps we are the exception to a sadder more modern normality.

Master 16 had the typical teen birthday that went for about a week - that is when you know you are still a kid and not an adult - when you are an adult you are lucky to get your birthday to last for 24 hours .....

So Master 16 celebrated on the day with a dinner for just the 4 of us at Gringo's Mexican at the Bay - oh and it was good! We are all a bit partial to guacamole, nachos and tortillas. So there we sat, inhaling this beautiful food until we reached our fill.....well we thought we had until we found Copenhagen icecream around the corner calling us to come in and have a little icecream for dessert that is!

Then came the weekend where we spent an afternoon with my mother and step-father, and my brother and nephew. Yup another one of those family type gatherings, the kids disppear upstairs to play their games and the adults can sit and eat all that "crap party food" and chat; catching up on what is happening in each others lives.

One of Master 16's favourite comments around here is, with his voice dripping sarcasm, he says "and how mature are you?" Granted it normally comes after a well earned juvenile display from me...like when we are getting settled to watch a movie nonchalantly walking into the room clearly not bothered on which chair I sit, then at the last minute dashing head long for the desired seat, pushing children's bodies behind me! Or his most damning of my juvenile behaviours, cracking up laughing at my own jokes before anyone else does "That is just disturbed, Mum. You don't laugh at your own jokes before someone else does it is just wrong".

So on the weekend he decided to seek counsel from his uncle and get him to agree with him that in fact I was disturbed because I laugh at my own jokes first. My brother's rsesponse (man I love this guy!!) went like this....

"Well you see some of us have a more highly evolved sense of humour than others. Then when we crack a joke, we need to laugh at it, to indicate that a joke has been made, so those not as highly evolved can know that it means they may have to think a little harder to find the joke in what we said"....cracking me up, I just looked at Master 16 and said "yeah, what he said" pointing at my brother - needless to say Master 16 just rolled his eyes in true teen fashion.

Then last night was the finale of the every going birthday celebration. We were invaded by six 16 year olds, 2 girls and 4 boys. I had met 3 of them before last night. I often refer to Master 16 and his friends as the misfits and I mean that in a loving, caring motherly way. I mean it in they don't fit the mold of "teenage jocks" or "supersporty" and each of them has their own sense of quirkiness but as a unit they just fit and work so well together. They are all incredibly supportive of each other and have a great friendship between them all.

So it was destination cold hills area of town on the day that was the coldest in 3 years! yep those poor parents would have loved us coming out for a 5.30pm drop off and a 10.30pm pick up.

The first thing that struck me was the giving of "gifts". As is usual fare at this age, it is often a card with some money and maybe a block of chocolate to boot. The thing that really touched me was that the majority of the cards were made by the kids themselves, and yes the boys being creative - who would have thought??? Mind you being creative allows for the subtle double play meanings you can put in your mate's cards that you might not find in your newsagent stand! These kids had spent their own time making cards for their mate for his birthday - I was stoked! How awesome that they wanted to spend the time, and equally how awesome that they didn't feel the need to buy a card so that they fitted some notion of the modern hip crowd with just the right card - see what I mean, misfits in the best possible ways.

When Master 16 planned his birthday, he had the option to choose more or less whatever he wanted, taking a group to the movies or somewhere else. "Nope mum, we don't need to do that stuff. We have the wii, the table tennis table, DVDs. We can do all that and all just sit about and talk and eat the party stuff" And that pretty much summed up the time they had last night. More soft drink was consumed per head than I thought humanly possible - lucky they left here late, hopefully they were tired when they got home and not buzzing on all that sugar!

It was bitterly cold last night but they cared not a jot! Outside for table tennis they went til hypothermia set in and they couldn't feel their fingers and thus had difficulty wielding their paddle with ease.

Of course they were not perfect angels all the time - they are teenagers, I would be worried if they were perfect angels all the time. The allure of the spiral staircase had been fought for sometime before they succumbed. Piling on top of each other and trying to slide down the bannister. Hubby was not impressed with this behaviour and read the riot act. I had to keep quiet because at their age, running full to the brim on sugar and hormones, I'm pretty certain I would have done the same thing - afterall bannisters are for sliding down really! Especially if you are in someone else's home and you don't have one of your own!

At different points in the night we had coffee with the parents of Master 16's best friend. Mum dropped them off, Dad did pick up. Poor Dad he turned up at 10 instead of 10.30 to wails of protest as he was picking up about 4 people! So he had to have a coffee to pass that crucial extra 30 mins at the end of a 5 hour period.

During our conversations we touched on the good things and perhaps the slightly scary things to come. We touched on how whilst it is a pain to have to go and drop them off and pick them up on a cold, wet night - it is a blessing knowing exactly where they are and who they are with and that they have a safe lift home. They are all coming to the age where they can get their "learners permits" and eventually be able to drive themselves. Fortunately this group are not the least bit interested yet and we, their parents, are happy to let this one lay dormant for as long as possible.

We also talked about how many 16 year olds try to smuggle alcohol in to each others' parties. As for these guys there was no smuggling and the contraband on the night consisted of extra wii controllers, some wii games and a PC game or two.

Of course we know we have to let them grow up and take their own paths but for now, things are in a really nice place. All of us as parents in this group know where they are, we drop them at each others' houses for movie nights, or poker nights or warhammer game days. We also know that the parents of all these kids have done a great job raising great kids who are respectful and sensible and just enjoy hanging out together without the need to do totally random stupid things.

So for now, as a group, we feel really blessed that our kids have found each other and have found a really great friendship group and that we as parents can feel comfortable in slowly letting them find their feet and start to explore more of life on their own terms.

Memories

It has been a kind of funny time of late - much time spent in the company of my own gorgeous teenagers, chasing each other around the table tennis table and dodging a well timed thwack of the table tennis bat paddled in the direction of your rear end!

We often mourn those that we have lost and those feelings of loss are so strong in the early days and over time, the loss doesn't go away but the way we respond to it changes. Maybe because we let our minds wander to those that we have lost, we open the door again to the memories of life with them.

A good friend of mine recently lost his father, so I guess it was kind of inevitable my thoughts would turn to my own father. Interestingly there have been conversations with another friend about an upcoming event in her life which again directed my thoughts back to my father.

My mum reckons I remind her of him at times with my mannerisms. My brother on the other hand is the living image of my father, right down to the way in which he answers the telephone!

Dad grew up in fairly tough times with his father having to work on the railways to make a living, leaving his mother largely to raise the family on her own during those times his father was away. As the oldest son, I think in many ways he took on much of the responsibility for his mother and his younger siblings.

I'm sure it was his upbringing that made him the way he was, he was a pretty forthright guy...one of the things I remember most as an adult was him saying "If you want to hear me say what you want to hear, then don't ask me, because if you ask me what I think I am going to tell you what I think whether you like it or not!" Well like he said, we were warned! Many a time family members asked him his opinion, with no concept that what would come out was the honest truth as he saw it, no softly softly, no bullshit, just his thoughts laid out there on the table.

He did his stint in national service as a young man, and well all that routine and rigidity of life must have sure suited him because it sure became a way of life in our household. It wasn't a dull, scary, nasty place, quite the opposite but there was a routine and heaven help he who didn't follow the routine.

Of course as the youngest and the only daughter, I was always Daddy's Princess and he sooo loved having a daughter as father's often do. Sadly for him, his wasn't the prissy feminine thing seen sitting delicately on the seat in a sea of pink tulle and lace...nope his daughter was the jeans and T-shirt girl, tearing around the yard like a mad thing, trying to keep up with my older brother and his friends...none of that girlie stuff for this girl - what a bore!

As was the case for many fathers of his generation he was a master of the school of tough love. Not that we were really smacked that often that I can remember, although I do remember one or two summers as an up myself tween that I shot my mouth off, only to reel from the sting of a well timed thwack with the rubber thong deftly whipped off his foot and aimed across the back of my leg. Still I can honestly say I never had to wonder what it was I was being punished for, each time I wore one, I had been being a total smart mouthed pain in the arse and the pain finished up being mine just for a shortwhile til the sting went : - )

He had some classic sayings that to this day I chuckle when I think about them. Like when as kids we would hang off him with this constant whinging tirade of "Oh I wish we could have a ......." which we would then just repeat over and over again in an instinctive child knowledge of Japanese water torture (although we didn't know that is what it was at the time). He would put up with the whinging and whining for as long as he could and then smile sweetly at us and respond with "Wellll why don't you try wishing in one hand and spitting in the other and see which gets full first" LOL can you believe he used to say that to us kids?

Or the more stereotypic parental sayings like "If B wanted to jump off a cliff, would you want to do that too?" and perhaps most frightening of that little gem is the moment I first heard it come from my own mouth in discussion with my own children...arrrggghhhhh I'm turning into my own parents!!!!!

I don't actually recall this one happening but knowing what a total bitch I was as a tween, I have no doubt about its truth. One Saturday morning having collected me from gymnastics, Dad wanted to stop off at the shop to pick up a few things and get us some tasties for lunch from the bakery. Well of course I didn't go into the shops with him, are you kidding??? How embarrassing being seen in the company of your olds at the shop! Nope, not I!!! Having returned to the car to deposit the shopping, he enquired sweetly through my passenger side window as to what I might like (for lunch). It would appear that at some point in the morning he had managed to rearrange his pants and socks in such a way as to have his trouser leg tucked into his sock! So in response to his loving question about the possible cullinary delights I might like, the poor bugger got a mouthful....allegedly that went something like this "What I'd like is for you to take your pants of our your sock and stop looking like a dickhead!" What a complete and utter bitch, but you know as a tween there is nothing more sacred than not appearing like a total tool in front of your peers and well, what if someone had seen him dressed like that and recognised him as my father? Lordy, lordy I'd have to have hibernated for months to avoid the embarrassment of that one! I have no idea how I managed to escape his wrath for that little outburst, perhaps he too remembered those teen angst years and cut me some slack...as I now do for son number 2 when I speed up if I see anyone he knows in the distance so by the time they walk by us, I am several metres in front and number 2 son is clearly not "out with the olds".

Mind you my Dad wasn't always serious, far from it! He had a prized gi-normous wooden spoon hanging on the wall that said "World's Greatest Stirrer" given him to by work colleagues because he was most assuredly a shit stirrer with a very cutting, very witty sense of humour - see you can see that my father and I are nothing alike really...not!!

I remember my Dad giving son number 1 a big box wrapped up as a gift for his birthday. Beloved son had asked for a soccer ball and so expected to find that when he unwrapped his gift - you can imagine his surprise when he opened the box and it contained a roll of toilet paper! Of course my Dad thought he was just hilarious. So that became the standing gift between son and grandfather for several years, a version of the wrapped up roll of toilet paper given for birthdays or Christmas!

Sadly for my kids along with some of his parenting sayings I too have a decidedly immature sense of humour - yep there have been times when they have asked me one time too many what is for tea and I can't help myself but the words "pooh on toast" roll off my tongue with consumate ease!

I'm not sure why it is but karate and my Dad seemed to have been an intertwining story in my life. I signed up my oldest son and myself for karate mid week when one of those door to door folk appeared offering a package if 2 people signed up together. I spoke to my father a day or so later and told him I was planning on doing karate with my oldest - what could he say really? All those years of raising a tomboy, I'm not sure anything surprised him. Whilst he had been ill for sometime and we knew his time was limited, the suddeness of his death took us all by surprise, it was the early hours of a Wednesday morning. It was the Sunday of that week that son and mother were to partake of their first karate lesson. In an attempt to both keep a sense of normality to their lives and to not disappoint my son, off we went to that karate lesson. What a complete godsend that was! All the angst, turmoil and sadness left me for the duration of my time in the dojo. There was so much to learn, so much to absorb, all my energy and focus were directed at what was going on in front of me. I thought I was doing a pretty good job, til the clown in front said "now we will move forwards and backwards doing that"...hahaha pretty funny joke eh? Only he wasn't joking! I wonder whether it was that beautiful sense of calm, of invigoration of my spirit that I experienced that day, that has melded me to the practice of karate from that day forth.

Many years later, my brown belt grading was approaching, the biggie, the biggest one apart from the black belt shodan grading, so everyone said. I was the picture of calm and tranquility at that grading (most unusual for the nerve bucket I usually am pre-grading). However for this grading I was completely calm because I believed no matter what happened I was going to grade that day. Why? Because it was meant to be. The date of my brown belt grading fell on my father's birthdate.

This week precedes another big grading, in many ways the biggest yet. Where the shodan was the undergrad, the nidan becomes the post grad. The journey as much about me and what I have learnt and how I use what I know to help out others, as it is about learning specific moves or stances. And yet I still I find myself thinking of him and writing a blog to honour him - again the alignment is there in my life, that link that continues.

Memories are so good to have of those we love and when it comes to lost parents, I think we don't really appreciate them or who they really are until we become adults in the first instance and then more tellingly as parents ourselves in the second instance. We sure forgive our parents a multitude of "sins" when we take to the daunting task of parenting ourselves. We discover only too soon that kids don't come with instruction manuals and you just have to make the best decision you can at the time, sometimes it is the right one, sometimes it is the wrong one....but the decision was always made with love and with the best intentions!