Posted By Tough Cookie Mommy on July 26, 2011

    This past week, I had to get involved in something that I simply could not hold my tongue about anymore.  You see, the teenage daughter of one of my family members posted something extremely inappropriate on Facebook and I just could not turn a blind eye to it.  Believe me, this was totally against my better judgment because this is not the first time that this has happened with this teenage cousin.  She and her siblings have posted vulgar and sexual things on Facebook in the past and getting involved in it did not turn out very well for me.

    Herein lies the problem, their mother is an enabler.  She had children well into her mid to late thirties and now she complains that she doesn’t have the energy to deal with their teenage shenanigans.  A contributing factor to all of this has been the decline of her health over the years.  Although she is not incapacitated in any way, she has been in treatment over the years for a menagerie of physical ailments and she blames her inability to control her children on her ailing health these past few years.  While this may have been a factor, there are many issues around her inability to parent that have exacerbated the current situation in her home.

    Let’s begin with the parade of people that she has allowed to cop a squat in her house over the years.  Everything from boyfriends to friends have been allowed free room and board in her apartment throughout the lives of these children.  Unfortunately, while her intentions might have been good, she did not do such a great job of properly screening the individuals that her children were exposed to.  They have witnessed everything from fist fights to the police being called in the one place where they were supposed to be safe, their home.

    This brings me to the present and this whole Facebook fiasco.  Let me preface by saying that I am all for gay and lesbian rights and we have many gay friends and family members that we love and support.  However, this does not mean that I think it is appropriate for a 13 year old to be posting status updates about her sexual experimentation with those of the same and the opposite sex.  I thought against getting involved for a fleeting moment but my “Mommy Radar” went into overdrive and I jumped right in.

    I sent the 13 year old a message telling her that she did not need to post such vulgar and inappropriate content because she was a child and should conduct herself as such.  You might be wondering why I did not immediately report what was going on to her mother.  The reason is that this is not the first time that I brought this issue up with her mother who just laughed it off and proceeded to tell me that this behavior was normal and that “all the kids” were doing it.  Obviously, this was an ignorant tree that I had no desire to bark up.  Since I work with teenagers daily and generally do a good job of communicating with them, I figured talking to the teenager was a better strategy.

    Boy, was I wrong.  She proceeded to post on FB that she did not care what anybody thought about her status updates and that she would continue to do whatever she wanted.  Once again, I got a swift kick in the pants for trying to do the right thing.  The only good thing that came out of it was the fact that it put my conscience at ease that I did not just stand by and allow this happen without speaking up.  In the end, I’m not sure how much good it did because it didn’t change anything in this teenager’s life.

    Most people who I spoke to about the incident in real life and on social networking sites seemed to be overwhelmingly in favor of getting involved.  Many of them expressed having gone through similar situations and shared with me that they never even gave it a second thought over whether they should get involved or not and considered it their duty to do something about it.  Others, however, felt that it is better to not get involved, especially if there is a history with the parent of the child being ineffective or being an enabler.  After the fact, I’m not entirely sure that I did the right thing.  What do you think, should I just have minded my own business?

© 2011, Tough Cookie Mommy. All rights reserved.

Categories: Family, Life Lessons, Parenting, Relationships
Tags: Disrespect, Facebook, Family, Life lessons, Parenting, Relationships, Teenagers, Vulgarity