Conversations With The Boy

Throughout history, each generation of parents has been faced with new challenges regarding the care and upbringing of their children. The perpetual evolution of our culture continues to put new twists on a task as old as time itself: raising our offspring to become healthy, happy, thriving adults and contributing members of society, with hopefully some modicum of manners and decent decorum thrown in the mix.

• In the 1900s to the 1920s, teens went to work and married young, people started to play the blues, and the steel guitar and ouija boards were invented.
• During the 1920s, hemlines went up, jazz came onto the scene, Prohibition made criminals out of everyone, and dance marathons became the craze.
• In the 1930s, parents encouraged their kids to get a High School diploma to give them a fighting chance during the economic depression. Teens learned to depend on themselves instead of their parents. Oh yeah, they also learned to Swing Dance {scandalous}.
• By the time the 1940s rolled around, teens had become their own force to be reckoned with, hence the advent of the word, "teenager". Sleeve lengths and hemlines continued to get shorter and shorter and doing the jitterbug was killer diller.
• 1950s teens were watching television, listening to Rock 'N' Roll, and idolizing sexy Marilyn Monroe. There was also the problem of Elvis and his *gasp* gyrating pelvis.
• The 1960s brought hemlines all the way up to miniskirts which were worn with seductive go go boots (bras optional). The Beatles burst onto the scene as smiling, catchy tuned moptops, but morphed into psychedelic acid rockers by the end of the decade. Teens were pitted against their parents as never before, fighting for their political beliefs, free love and the right to smoke pot and wear tie-dye.
• The 1970s found teens streaking, listening to Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper,The Sex Pistols, and learning about a life of disco and sexual promiscuity from John Travolta in 'Saturday Night Fever'.
• The teens of the 1980s were well off, spending money on frivolities with a general apathetic attitude towards life. Drugs became prevalent as did the scare of HIV and AIDS. Adults began banning books like mad in a misguided attempt to keep bad ideas out of the heads of teenagers. Meanwhile, teen girls mimicked the so NOT 'Like a Virgin', Madonna, donning lace tops, fishnets, baubles and heavy makeup. Boobs, sex and drugs became the theme of all movies viewed by teens.
• In the 1990s, punk pop became mainstream, broken families became the norm, and computers and electronic devices began to blend into our everyday lives. TV became increasingly more accepting of sexual content, profanity and graphic violence.

This brings us to the past 10 years wherein the internet has taken over our lives completely, especially the lives of teenagers. Teens now spend 24/7 online by way of their ipods, cell phones, laptops, PS3's, PSPs, Nintendo DS, etc. Instead of going out to find "something to do" teens are huddled around a glowing screen IMing friends online, talking to strangers on Chat Roulette, updating their Facebook status, sexting, taking naked cell phone pics of themselves, viewing the latest hit vid on YouTube, or Googling "poop", "man-boobs" and "bedsores". Teens of today have access (like it or not) to information, photos and videos on any subject at any time. I am "schooled" by my teens quite frequently about things I never knew and never particularly wished to know, frankly.

Teens of today have seen pornography on a scale I cannot even fathom. Clearly, young men wanting to see naked chicks is not a new phenomenon. It has, however, become slightly more complicated to monitor as a parent. Ripping down your son's pin-up girl picture, or throwing away the Playboy under the bed is pretty simple compared to trying to de-pornify the world wide web. In 1983, Tom Cruise's character, Joel Goodson, lived out every young man's fantasy by getting a super sexy call girl to fall for him. While parents at the time no doubt found 'Risky Business' questionable viewing for their children, the likelihood of their sons living out the scenario was pretty slim. Obviously, a teen's chance of getting into the same predicament as Joel is still a pretty far-fetched equation. However, in a virtual world, any scenario is possible and all manner of graphic videos can be seen via the internet. Which leads me to a recent conversation with the boy.

Boy: "I got added by a porn actress on Facebook."

Me: "You are not supposed to be adding porn actresses to your Facebook."

Boy: "SHE added me."

Me: " She CAN'T add you unless you confirm it."

Boy: "Well, I DID confirm it. Who isn't going to confirm a porn actress?"

Joel Goodson: "She wanted to make love on a real train. Who was I to say no?"

So, in conclusion.... hmmm...

If only it were as easy as saying, "Please Joel, do what they say, just get off the babysitter."