Parents Just Don't Understand

Let me say first of all that since I'm not a parent, I guess it can be said that I'm in no position to be able to judge other people's parenting skills. But I know when it's clear that a parent's not doing enough, and when a parent may be doing too much, and there have been recent examples of both that need to be mentioned.

First the case of a parent doing too much... down in Johnson City near Binghamton, the mother of a female high school basketball player filed a Title IX complaint because there are no cheerleaders at girls basketball games. She said this makes the girls feel like "second-class citizens", so there needs to be equality in who the cheerleaders root for. As a result, federal education officials ruled that cheerleaders have to go to girls games as well as boys games; both home and away, there has to be equal representation.

Last I checked, there have been girls sporting events in high schools for some 35 years now, since Title IX was originally passed. Nobody complained before that there weren't cheerleaders at the girls' games, and let's face it, people I've talked to have said it but nobody wants to put it in print, so I will... there's a reason that girls want to cheer boys and only boys. It's high school, girls like boys, so girls want to cheer for boys. I know when it's there in black-and-white, it looks incredibly sexist, but it's the truth. Just ask the cheerleaders themselves... one cheerleader for Whitney Point (about 20 minutes from Binghamton) said, "It feels funny when we do it," and she admitted to forgetting the name of one of the players. Other cheerleaders have just plain chosen not to stay on the squad if they have to go to both boys and girls games. Another result is that since girls' home games often are at the same time as the boys' away games, schools have chosen just to have their cheerleaders cheer at home games only.

The effects of this ruling have not reached the Syracuse area yet, fortunately, so last night when I went to the West Genesee-Henninger basketball game, we had cheerleaders from both schools at the game, co-mingling, doing cheers for each other, the whole nine yards, like it's supposed to be. We could have done without one of the Henninger cheerleaders making an inappropriate gesture at West Genny's student section after one of their cheers late in the game with Henninger winning, but I digress... I don't see the road team not bringing it's cheerleaders as a sign that they're complying with a federal ruling, I see it as a lack of interest, even showing the home team up. And as for the girls' games, the girls are used to playing without cheerleaders, and the extra noise from the cheers drowns out directions from the coach and just plain annoys them. Don't even get me into the whole "is cheerleading a sport?" debate, but girls who play your regular team sports have been known to look down on their cheerleading counterparts.

Long story short, there is a way things have been done for years and call me conservative, but there's no need to change it, not because one parent got upset over it. Incidentally, was this because her daughter actually had a problem with it, or is it because Mom decided to become a crusader and use her daughter as an excuse? We've certainly seen THAT one before... a parent using their kid as a reason to start a movement against something. Michael Newdow, anyone?

Now, on to the parents who don't do enough... four families have sued MySpace and owner News Corp. because their teenage daughters were sexually assaulted by older men they met on MySpace. First of all, let me say that there is no condoning what these predators did, not for any reason. However, ever since it became apparent that adult males were trying to find 14 and 15-year old girls on MySpace (and that said teenage girls were often lying about their ages to attract older men), people have done everything in their power to get the word out. Hell, this has been the case since the Internet first came into being. We've heard these horror stories for at least a decade about and older guy posing as someone younger, meeting a teenage girl, getting her to trust him, and then when they meet, horrible things happen. For years, parents have been cautioned to keep tabs on their teenagers' Internet habits, to make sure they know where their kids are going when they go out at night, even though it will certainly upset their kids.

Now don't think I'm blaming the parents of these kids... believe me, I want to, but they've suffered enough, so I won't heap the criticism directly on them for what happened, but getting the lawyers involved is where I draw the line. The stated reason for this lawsuit is not that MySpace hasn't done anything to stop these things from happening, but that they haven't done it quickly enough. One of the lawyers involved had this to say: "Blaming the families of abuse victims who were solicited online, as some have done, is a cynical excuse that ignores the fact that social networking sites can lead to heinous abuse by Internet predators. It is now clear that MySpace recognizes that serious security problems exist."

Fine, they recognize it, they're doing something about it, so WHY SUE THEM? Extracting your pound of flesh (or in this case, pound of cash) is not going to stop this from happening. MySpace touts that they have worked harder on trying to stop interaction between older males and young females, but like I said, these girls often lie about their ages, and in that case, what can you do? It all comes back to the parents and their responsibility to watch over their children and keep them safe, and to do it by any means necessary. Millions of people use MySpace for legitimate and legal reasons, why put their future enjoyment of this site in jeopardy? After all, these things never end with just a smattering of lawsuits, especially if these families win. Usually when that happens, the floodgates open.

I guess what I'm trying to say is something I find myself saying a lot... DO NOT GET LAWYERS INVOLVED. Just try your best to be a good parent, keep your kids safe and happy. If you see an injustice that affects your child, well first you might want to take a moment to find out if it truly does affect your child and not just you... and secondly, it's all right to take up the cause but try not to do it in a way that can potentially affect millions of people who shouldn't be affected by this. All I'm saying is you can make things better for your child without inadvertently messing things up for a lot of other people.