It Is Official…I am the Meanest Mom in the World!

There is a common misconception among parents that announcements regarding improved “safety” on social sharing sites have actually changed the way the sites do business.  For an example of how MySpace has improved….check out the postings by Joseph Clipper.

There is a more widely spread belief that if your child is on-line and has been told of all the dangers lurking in the shadows of cyber space he or she will be safe.

For all of you that believe that…I’ve put on a HUGE pot of very strong coffee.  Heaven knows I got my cup this week.

My daughter has spent time in my office as I moved from account registrations to the National Sex Offender’s data base.  She has listened to report after report in Florida about young girls who have sealed their destinies by running out to meet the adorable teenagers on-line who turn out to be the worst kind of monsters.

On Sunday night at 11:30 p.m. as I was performing a last check of the site I work for before going to bed, I noticed that the modem was indicating someone was on the phone.  I found my daughter in her closet, engaged in a phone chat with someone she met in an AOL Teen Chat Room.  First she swore she didn’t have the phone.  I paged it and traced it to the closet floor hidden under clothing.  Then she swore the “boy” she was talking to was someone from school.  I may have been born at night…but it wasn’t last night…and fortunately I have learned to trust my instincts.

I’ve turned into a prison guard.  No out, no friends over, no television, no internet, no phone, no I-pod, no stereo.  I drive her to school and meet her at the bus stop in the afternoon.  She will realize eventually that the privileges she had were not used responsibly.  She will realize that these little “hardships” she is suffering are a thousand times easier that what could occur as a result of her actions.

Now that I am in possession of her passwords, I’ve found a picture that appears to be a man between the ages of 25 and 27.  She tried to convince me that he is a senior at her school. 

Currently, and unknown to the person she spoke to on the phone on Sunday, I am now communicating with him under her name.  At 1:00 in the afternoon….two e-mails have been received in her account, with one stating that they can “run away” together.  I can’t wait to see how this all turns out.

Toss your misconceptions out the window, invade their privacy and be all over your child’s internet activity.  Read the e-mails, watch the instant messaging,   be that nosy nasty parent…but keep your child alive.

I’ll be the first to admit that I am the meanest mom in the world right now…but my daughter will not be a statistic.

Some Things Are Definitely Worth The Wait

I have wanted a sister as far back as I remember.  I always envied the bonds shared between them, and even the competition.  I grew up as the oldest child and only girl, with two younger brothers.   Even the children that were close in age on my father’s side were all male.  After the age of six, the appeal of playing army and crashing matchbox cars looses the appeal.  Of course, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, in the very early 1960’s gender identity was defined even in Golden Books.  I had my dolls, blackboard, and all the essential pretend kitchen components….all the things girls should be interested in.  What I was lacking was someone to play with twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

As a child, I was so jealous of the cousins who had older sisters to pave the way and teach them all the tricks.  I longed to share even the knock-down drag out fist fights that scared the living daylights out of me while they were taking place.  I was lucky enough to have had three female cousins a year older than I on my mother’s side.  Even more fortunate was the fact that my mother saw fit to allow us to spend ample time together.

I did not, however, truly understand the connection between sisters until very recently.  My brother married in October of last year, and I decided long before that I would not have a sister –in-law, but a real sister.  The privilege of spending time with my new sister in the days prior to her wedding and helping with little tasks here and there, was wonderful.  Just *knowing* what had to be done and doing it, with no need for words.  Talking, and laughing and getting to know one another was wonderful.  Gentle feedback and reassurances regarding wardrobe and such were exchanged, and as I zipped up her wedding gown, I was confident that my brother could not have found me a better sister.

Events of the past months have called for the further development of that bond…one that will never be severed.  It is an indestructible force that sincerely celebrates small accomplishments of the other, and experiences the sorrows as well.

After forty-six years, I can honestly say this was most definitely worth the wait.

  

Surviving Stephen

Losing a sibling is like watching your past, present and future fly out the window. Memories of days gone by, a phone call we should make today and the dreams we take for granted in all of our tomorrows are swept away in a wave of grief so deep that it grips your heart like a vice and as it rushes it steals your breath, carrying it away.  Suddenly you understand how it is possible for a heart to break. Suddenly you understand that heartbreak is tangible.

The events that lead to my brothers death are like pieces of a puzzle that still seem surreal in many ways.  I still carry a guilt for not acting on my gut feeling, for not being there the way I should have, and for not trusting what I knew in my heart was true.  I can’t imagine what my mother felt on that night.  He called her, and she would later describe the deperatioin in his voice as tortured.  To this day, and probably for the rest of time, I will wonder how her legs held her when the emergency squads told us what I already knew.  Stephen was gone.  An hour turned into days that night.  Nothing seemed to move fast enough, not the ride to his home, not the arrival of the police or the length of time it took to enter his home.  Thinking back, I don’t know why those minutes were so important, because inside I knew.  I didn’t have to wait for them to say it.  They wouldn’t allow either of us to see him, was there someone we could call?  There is a time where automation seems to take over, and you move because you have to, but you certainly don’t want to. 

In a split second, the nieces and nephews I hoped to hold, the sweet smile, the hugs that were so enveloping and so warm that they consumed your soul, the smile and laughter and teasing were gone.  Faded photographs, a message on an answering machine, the small scar on my elbow from a water fight gone awry years before, vacations as children, and questions were all that we had to hold on to. 

In early days, all of us experienced the same feeling, a well meaning “How are you?” had us gathering every bit of strength we could possibly muster.  The screams and tears we buried so deeply because if we allowed them out they would be a force that could destroy humanity as we know it.  I wrote.  I prayed that a gunshot released my brother from the demons that held him in life, I got angry, I cried in the night, I dreamt, I spoke to him and held everyone else at arm’s length.  Still, I can’t understand how my mother stands. 

My mother, my remaining sibling and I have embraced this lesson.  We are well aware that life is temporary.  We allow nothing to beat us and we have learned an ultimate lesson in forgiveness.We all are like the Phoenix.  We rise from the ashes, wiser, stronger and more determined.  We believe there is a force that stands behind us, urging us on and pulling a few strings here and there.  We heed what we know to be true within ourselves.

Through his death, we have learned to embrace life.

Logically, we know that none of us have the power to change the path another opts to walk.  Logically we know that a minute or two would not have made a difference.  Logically, time heals, but logic and emotion are two different things.  Tomorrow marks five years since my brother’s suicide and though the waves that physically steal my breath come less frequently, still they remain.

Just for today, I allow myself to miss him and to let myself summon the feeling of those hugs…the ones that, miracously still comfort me