What Are They Doing?

Years ago there were public ads that said, “It’s 10:00 PM, do you know where your children are?”

It’s easy to remember because our parents always knew where we were and would shamelessly call a friend’s house to check with the parents to assure they were OK with the plan. Ah, small town living years ago!

Recently, I listened to a young woman give her testimony about being decidedly a transgender in her late teens and then changing her mind in her twenties. (Watch video here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbPzJy9gkY ).

One of the most disturbing things about the story was the inattentiveness of her parents to what she was doing on her computer for several hours straight every evening. They knew exactly where she was but had no idea or interest in what she was doing.

The particular site that she was going to is called Tumblr. On it, she was shamed into thinking that she was wrong in her “straight” life and should become a man. She had come to consider it a “community” in which she was accepted. She started stating her desire to be a man.

When she let the “community” know that her parents were not happy with the decision she was encouraged to separate herself from her family – which she did after she graduated from high school (which she now truly regrets)

By the grace of God she never made any permanent medical changes to her body. In her twenties she realized she was in a place and a “community” in which she no longer wanted to participate.

Many parents seem to think that in order to be accepted in today’s society a teenager (though many children who are only 8 or 10 are included) needs at least a phone and a computer. They think that if they are in their bedrooms they are conversing with the kids they attend school with or know from sports or church.

It is time for parents – all parents – to recognize the evil nature and intentions of many of these sites. A teenage girl hurt by her friends used to go home and talk to her Mom. Now she goes online and talks to whomever will listen and is likely to find anti-family, anti-God, anti-straight advice.  To the extent it feeds her hurt or angst or anger she is likely to take it.  Mom’s advice might be hard, but it’s only those who love you who will give the best counsel.

Especially for a family attempting to raise their children with a Christian worldview, this is dangerous territory.  I went and did some searching on Tumblr. There is very little (trying to give the benefit of the doubt) that is edifying, encouraging, wholesome, or conservative. There was some celebration of almost everything that God calls sin, including the language used.

Another story I remember reading a while ago was about a boy who was caught on video by another child in the cafeteria when he spilled food all over himself. He went and got his gym shorts and wore them the rest of the day. By the time he walked into his first class they had all received the video. He was ridiculed and laughed at online into the late hours of the evening.

The teacher who reported this was making the point that several years ago that incident would have been over by lunch time with a limited number of students even knowing it had happened. Today, by evening thousands have seen it and laughed or commented. The boy was so humiliated he did not want to return to school (so maybe that would be the good that came from the incident).

There is a third hurt child that I recently learned about whose negative internet influence was “Anime.” The mother showed me the absolutely pornographic images her daughter had been spending hours looking at and reading each night. I understand that not all Anime is porn but there is evidence that even cartoons are something to protect your children from watching.

Christian parents are called to teach their children God’s Word; His statutes and commandments (Deuteronomy 6:1-8). Deuteronomy 6:7 says, “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

Biblically, it’s clear; our job is not just to know where our kids are or even what they are doing where they are, our job is to teach them righteousness and checking with them to make sure others are not teaching them wickedness.

None of us would invite a stranger into our homes to spend unchaperoned time with our teenager; today’s computers are the door into your home!

If your child spends periods of time alone with a computer, it is time for you to step into that room and check the history. Your child is in peril.