“It’s not the same as it was in the old days”. You, like me, probably heard this growing up time and time again.
What you probably didn’t expect is that you would be thinking it, if not saying it, now that you have kids.
I was born in the seventies. There were no devices and the TV was black and white. I remember our first colour TV and our first VCR. It was cool to be a person that had a VCR, especially if it had an LP recording mode. Now that was cool.
I was a tom boy growing up. I liked to play football and volleyball. My friends were mostly boys. We played freely on the street – football, hide and seek, what have you. During the day and after dark.
When I think back now the amount of time that we were out of sight of our parents, it’s unbelievable.
I was never afraid when I played outside, whether I was with many kids or with just a few. Life was different back then. I walked to school by myself from the time I was in primary school. It was only about 500 meters but still. Junior high and high school were further afield and most kids, like me, walked there by themselves too.
Fast forward to the present moment and our reality is totally different. You can call it by many names, concern, fear, care, worry, paranoia. The fact remains that most of us don’t let our kids do what we did when we were their age.
Is it avoidable though? I don’t think so. In addition to the feelings of fear and protectiveness we feel towards our children there are many laws these days aiming at their protection too.
I come from an IT background so I’m familiar with some of the stuff that can happen online. And it scares me.
I know that we cannot be in control all the time. If not sooner, that pretty much ends that first day your little one goes through the school gates.
But we certainly do all we can. That’s why they don’t play by themselves on the street anymore. That’s why someone takes them to school and fetches them. That’s why we accompany them to all the kids parties.
There is danger everywhere and most of the time even perceived danger is enough to trigger our self-defence mechanisms.
And then there are smartphones, cameras at our beck and call and of course, Facebook pages to upload them to. We like capturing every moment and we like to share. Some of us are careful about the people we share with and some are not.
A lot of us don’t perceive cyber danger in the same way we perceive physical danger. It doesn’t rate in the same scale to all people.
But the danger is there. Every time we take photos with our phones, a GPS stamp is put on the photo. Hackers/paedophiles can easily access that information from a Facebook page and know pretty much your every move and that of your kids.
Not to mention photos you may post of other children – that you took at school events, in the playground or at parties. Publishing photos of others without their express consent is not ok. Period. Not matter who the audience is. If it’s not your child it’s not your call. Most child crime comes from people nearest to the family. People that you trusted implicitly. So it’s not ok to share other children’s photos, no matter how restricted the group.
I’m not advocating a state of paranoia, but rather one of awareness. In the last couple of decades we have become very aware and protective of our kids in the physical world. It’s time we acknowledge the risks and become more aware and protective in the digital world too.