Have you ever heard the phrase “the good ole days”? I’ve heard it quite a few times in my life actually. From what I understand they took place sometime in the fourth week of May 1977; then had a brief recurrence sometime around the third week of October in 1985, but were originally based on the events of October of 1879.
These dates aside, everyone has their own version of “the good ole days”. For me it was playing little league baseball and then piling the entire team into the bed of my dad’s pick-up for the post-game drive to McDonalds. Try picturing that happening today. During my childhood, occurrences like that were common. So were drinking from a garden hose, kids playing around various neighborhoods outdoors at any hour, and kids being let loose in the woods of a family friend to frolic and entertain themselves as they will. Nowadays it seems as if these practices have all but faded from view.
Now, having said all that, I will also state that I grew up as a child of two worlds. I have many memories of all the aforementioned activities as well as holing myself up in a room to play video games for hours on end or read a book indoors. Regardless, the world has moved on. Neighborhoods are no longer safe after dark because you never know what kind of child predator lurks in the shadows. If city streets aren’t safe then God only knows what could be hiding in the woods. And, sweet mother, can you imagine what kind of bacteria could be growing in/around that garden hose?
One particular mutation of society would be the proliferation of social networking websites. Now information is traded, not from person to person in a living room, but on a global scale via Facebook. Pictures are not shared one person at a time, but to hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands at a time. Anyone you deem worthy can witness every nuance of your life that you choose to make available. Some would say that this is advancement of society through widespread communication. Others would argue that it is a detriment and undermines the values of interpersonal contact/communication. I can easily see both sides, but I’m scared by the taboos that this society is beginning to impose.
I recently read an article about a woman who had taken photographs of her babies playing in the bathtub (http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/blogs/storked/2009/09/bath-time-photos-or-child-porn.html ). I’m sure we’ve all had pictures like this that we prayed to God our mothers wouldn’t pull out when we had a date over at the house. These photos are considered treasured memories. My brother (henceforth known as Bro) had a close friend with a picture hanging in his house of the entire family (father, mother, friend, and friend’s brother) in the bathtub together when the two brothers were mere toddlers (no naughty bits were visible). Bro used to joke about who took the picture (it was a camera on a timer), but how would such a picture be perceived today? Were these parents sexualizing or molesting their children in this picture? No, it was a memory of their babies that the parents wanted to keep. How could anyone report such a picture as child pornography?
Reading this article began to literally make me sick to my stomach. The thoughts and opinions of our society have become so depraved that cute, memorable, and innocuous pictures of children have become oversexualized and disgusting. I fear for a society that fears their own actions. We’re creating a nation of parents that will be too timid to take action in their child’s life for fear of being misrepresented. What will happen when our children cannot be spanked or even put in time out for fear of the “psychological trauma” it will cause? Myself, Bro, and Sis were all spanked as children and grew up to be strong, (mostly) disciplined, productive members of society. Are we trying to created a future of undisciplined, anarchistic, fear-mongers? Who benefits from such a society? I can only hope and pray that at some point certain values are restored. I’m all for societal and technological advancement, but not at the expense of the values that make us human.
