A few years back John and I had driven down to Pleasant Grove to visit his brother and his family. It was a trip that almost didn't happen, as just a day or two before we were to leave, our van broke down and needed a repair that was going to cost well over two thousand. I remember at the time being absolutely devastated by this unexpected cost and I wondered if we should just call off the whole trip. Looking back though, I'm so glad that we didn't! Not only were we able to experience all the amazing things that Utah has to offer (um, hello Sweet Tooth Fairy;) I also remember this trip as the time in which John and I learned one of the most important lessons we've ever learned, to date! It was on our first night there, as we sat in Jordan and Luci's kitchen after the kids had gone to bed, that we got into a conversation about pornography. It's a conversation that we really haven't ceased having, ever since!
John's brother Jordan had recently taken a passionate interest in warning others (particularly parents, children and youth) about the tactics used by the porn industry to draw in young viewers and the addictive drug like characteristics of pornography. On this particular night, he was sharing with us many components of his presentation - which was basically chalk full of everything I didn't know about pornography!!! I still remember sitting there feeling kinda sick with the realization that despite John's and my efforts to be "good parents" we were really quite naive and we had missed the mark - by a long shot! By the time we went to bed that night, we both knew that lots of things had to change!
I'm not certain that we've done all that we could do since then to prepare our kids for this reality - but we certainly have tried. We've welcomed opportunities to hear Jordan speak on the subject, we've increased the level of filtering in our home, we've changed the computer habits in our family, banned the internet from bedrooms, but mostly we've just tried to be comfortable talking about it with the kids. A couple of times a month we devote a portion of family home evening to reinforce some of our feelings and concerns about pornography. We share experiences we've had where we maybe came across it and how we handled it. We found a CAN DO plan that we refer to often with them that consists of 5 things that our "CAN DO" when they come across pornography:
1. Close your eyes (stop looking at it)
2. Alert a trusted adult
3. Name it for what it is. (ie: That is pornography!)
4. Distract yourself and picture something positive
5. Order your thinking brain to be the boss
To be honest, I've worried that our conversations have been in vain and I've wondered if they would really even recognize pornography when confronted with it? And would they even tell us if they had?
The other day I was thrilled when I went to pick up the kids from school and the moment Sam got in the van (before he told me anything else about his day) he said, "Mom! Today I saw pornography!"
Ok... that part didn't thrill me, in fact my heart sank a little and I tried to sound casual as I asked him to describe to me what happened. He said he'd had an assignment in which he needed to use the internet to research 5 facts about Kevin Durant. He described how, as he was googling for facts, an image appeared on the sidebar that instantly made him feel uncomfortable. He said it was a picture of a woman in a very "bad bikini" with the words "how to be sexy for your man" written below it. (Now, to be entirely fair, I am sure that the school has some sort of filter set up for their school computers and I really don't know how bad that picture actually was. Was it hard core porn? Probably not. For all I know, it could have been a Gap add - but to Sam, it was not ok and that is all that really matters.)
He continued to tell me how he felt when it popped up, and how he immediately wanted to close the lid of the laptop. Then he picked up the computer, carried it up to his teachers desk and said "Mrs______ there is some pornography on my computer and I need you to get rid of it for me."
Again, I'm not sure what it was his teacher saw, whether most of us would have found it to be rather benign or not, but I'm glad she responded in the validating way that she did. She opened the computer, checked for herself and said, "You are right Sam. This is not something you need to look at. Let me clean it up and I'll bring your computer back to you when the picture is gone."
WOOT WOOT!!!
I know many will think this is not a big deal, these things are all around us and yes, darn near impossible to keep from my kids. To me though, it wasn't really about what he saw at all!
I was bursting at the seams proud of him for deciding for himself that what he saw was not okay to him! I was proud of him for realizing that he had the ability to control how he responded to what he saw. I was proud of him for having the courage to take it to his teacher even though he was afraid she'd get mad at him. Mostly though, I was so grateful that the first thing he wanted to do when he saw me was share this experience with me. To him, this was a victory, and that (if you ask me) was reason enough to celebrate!!!
So...I took him to Dave's-Drive-In and bought him the biggest milkshake he could get;)
I know as parents, our job is to teach our kids how to think, not necessarily what to think, but that is a constant challenge for me to figure out sometimes where one begins and the other ends. I feel very anxious when I think of all that is thrown at my kids; things that I have absolutely no control of and I desperately want to stop it before it ever even reaches them. I suppose the only comfort that I will feel will come with knowing that my kids will act according to what they feel is right.
The best part of the whole day came when he said to me, "Mom, I just knew what it was."
Absolutely music to my ears!!
