Skip to main content
Skip to main navigation
Skip to talk navigation

Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Saved Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Flip

1 2

AIBU?

to worry about the world by young daughters will grow up to be teens in?

44 replies

VictorTango · 02/04/2013 10:42

With the news today that 15 children are expelled a day for sexual bullying, I feel sorry for anyone raising teens (boys and girls) in this day and age. The music videos, the sexual advertising, the ready available porn, the distorted image of sex that is pushed as the norm etc

I read an article in the Ipaper yesterday where the journalist was upset by a porn video her 11 year son had watched, after hearing it discussed in a geography lesson, which deeply affected him. She said it marked the loss of his childhood. And the violence disturbed him so much that it took him a few days for him to be able to discuss it with her.

If this is happening now, what will be the case in 10 years time when my dds are teenagers. I cannot see anything changing despite efforts by various pressure groups and forums like Mumsnet discussing it. I can only see it getting worse.

AIBU to worry that its gone too far, the horse has bolted and to fear for the teenage years my young dc will have to face?

OP posts:

Report

HoHoHoNoYouDont · 02/04/2013 10:46

I share you concerns. Like you say, we have to keep the pressure groups and forums going to raise awareness and educate people. If you don't then things slip through the net and become increasingly acceptable.

mummytime · 02/04/2013 10:48

Sorry but in my experience it is better for my teen than in my day.

Nope, no one from my school was expelled for sexual bullying. But that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Just I doubt anyone even bothered to report it, after all I was ignored when I told my HOY that a girl had told me she was going to beat me up on the way home from school. I was only saved from serious injury by a "bad" girl in the year above.

If my kids complain to their HOY about any incidents they are taken very seriously.

directoroflegacy · 02/04/2013 10:56

But Victor, doesn't it say alot (positively) about their relationship that he COULD and DID discuss it with her!

VictorTango · 02/04/2013 11:01

Oh yes, without doubt director. At least, as parents we are aware of what is going on and so can educate and talk to our children about being open with us. But that doesn't guarantee they always be. And even though he talked to his, he still watched that video and in his own words he can't 'unsee' it.

Mummy - I am pleased the school is on top of it and it is taken seriously. I guess the awareness will only increase over the years.

HOHOHO - Can you see anything changing in the near future?

OP posts:

thebody · 02/04/2013 11:07

No op I don't agree.

I grew up in the 70s and was a teen in 80s.

If you want to experience sexism, racism and plain old discrimination then you need to look back not at today.

I was sexually assaulted as a child by an adult working in our school, lots of the girls were, we told our mothers and female teachers and weren't belived at all. My mother just couldn't accept it.

I have 2 teen dds and they are far far more confident, strong than we were and the very nice thing is that they are strong as girls and don't soppy crap over boys of think boys are the bee all of life.

They talk careers, gap years and independence.
I have 2 grown up boys as well and they respect women.
Cheers for now I say.

No more or less violence today but difference being today it's reported, recorded and dealt with.

parakeet · 02/04/2013 11:19

This has really cheered me up. I have always thought the OP's sentiments, which you see all the time in the Daily HateMail etc. are mainly scaremongering. There were porn magazines knocking around at my secondary school in the early eighties. The boys loved to shove them in the girls' faces.

exoticfruits · 02/04/2013 11:22

The big difference today is the internet-getting hold of material at the click of a button that you could never have accessed before. That and on line bullying and grooming.
There is at least more awareness these days -it is how it is going to be dealt with that is the problem.

BoneyBackJefferson · 02/04/2013 11:42

Its not just the porn

Its the sexting and the ability to send pictures to one another.

VictorTango · 02/04/2013 11:53

And the carrying knives and gangs is also a worry.

I think there were problems in the 70s etc and today there are different problems but that doesn't make them any less real

OP posts:

thebody · 02/04/2013 12:14

There were gangs in the 70s and 80s.
There were riots and unrest.

Yes porn and the Internet is easily accessible but would you really swap our age for the jimmy saville 70s where noone was belived, police culture was that domestic violence was a 'private affair' and sexual violence was not investigated or belived.

We are getting there with equal pay, maternity rights contraception and abortion access, , equal opportunities.

Much much better for women now than days past.

thebody · 02/04/2013 12:15

Victor, gangs carried knives in the 50s

This is nothing new at all.

Tailtwister · 02/04/2013 12:21

I think things have improved in one sense, but the big thing for me is that technology has allowed these images to be distributed so easily and once they're out there you can't retrieve them. Also, social networking is just another tool which can be used to bully and intimidate.

b4bunnies · 02/04/2013 12:21

protect your daughters by instilling in them from their earliest days the belief that they deserve respect. educate them about how some people behave - make them wary. explain to them the possible consequences of their own behaviour. tell them about self-protection and recourse to the law. know where they are and what they are doing.

or do as most people seem to do and let them run wild, then complain when they come to grief.

Soupa · 02/04/2013 12:24

Whilst generally an optimist I think you do have a point op. Working on fringes of cp and sexual health I have seen massive change over the past decade or so. Group sex, anal sex, gang rape, blow jobs for bf mates... harmful horrid experiences distorted through internet porn and social media (you couldn't easily buy hardcore over the counter and certainly what now counts as hardcore).

Thankfully we all probably communicate better, have a better understanding of abuse but actually surveys if teens make grim reading. Sexual violence and abuse seen as normal and even deserved.

jungletoes · 02/04/2013 12:27

You are so right b4bunnies. I fear the pressure on girls to be grown-up before they're ready, but I have lots of conversations with my 12yo dd about respecting herself and waiting to start a sexual relationship. What is so different from my day is the www. It's all there at a click of a button, in the 80s it was in a shop with a painted-out front window for ADULTS ONLY.

As my dh always says," once seen it cannot be unseen".

jungletoes · 02/04/2013 12:30

..and what about the boys? I don't have sons but if I did I would hate to think of them watching porn and then not understanding about healthy sexual relationships. It does seem to be "do what I want or I'm off". Thinking about it that's always been around .

Tailtwister · 02/04/2013 12:31

I think boys are under a huge amount of pressure to grow up too. They need to know the implications of being in possession of these images. If someone sends them one, they need to delete it immediately not feel under pressure to forward it on.

SchroSawMargeryDaw · 02/04/2013 12:31

"Whilst generally an optimist I think you do have a point op. Working on fringes of cp and sexual health I have seen massive change over the past decade or so. Group sex, anal sex, gang rape, blow jobs for bf mates... harmful horrid experiences distorted through internet porn and social media (you couldn't easily buy hardcore over the counter and certainly what now counts as hardcore). "

All this stuff was talked about/happened when I was at school. I never heard of anyone being expelled for sexual bullying and there was plenty of it.

I actually remember being sent with a girl in my class to the FPC in a taxi by the school as she had been "prostituting herself" near her home and came into school thinking she was pregnant. This was in first year, she was 12 years old! They didn't even contact her parents!

I think it's better now, there's more awareness among parents and they know what to look out for, communication seems better in families a lot of the time now too.

VictorTango · 02/04/2013 12:33

I wouldn't swap for widespread child abuse,no.

This isn't a thread to argue if the 70's were worse than today.

It was to discuss if the technology and sexual imagery we see today will only get worse in the future and can we do anything to stop it?

OP posts:

BoneyBackJefferson · 02/04/2013 12:34

thebody

Just because things are better doesn't mean that we should stop.

And with regard to porn things are getting worse, the new smart phones are capable of saving and streaming entire films from the net.
also
Do you really want a video of your child on the toilet doing the rounds at school?

SchroSawMargeryDaw · 02/04/2013 12:38

Victor I'm only 22. Not exactly 70's...

SchroSawMargeryDaw · 02/04/2013 12:41

And btw, we had smartishphones when I was at school and I always remember being sent by "friends" to watch scatlovers or similar online.

And no, I don't think there's anything you can do to stop it, just make sure you talk to your kids about what is and isn't right and that they are educated at home about boundaries and saying no.

BoneyBackJefferson · 02/04/2013 12:47

Schro
But thats the difference, you had smart-ish phones. I assume that they sent you the link, the "friends" could now just send you the file.

SchroSawMargeryDaw · 02/04/2013 12:57

We could still send videos via MMS, and phones were still linked to the net (although expensiveish). It actually didn't make a difference as we still didn't know what we were being told to look at, so we did, there wasn't so .

We also had the internet in school and in the school library and we had no parental controls, a lot of this stuff was sent in school, no one told the teachers as there wasn't much point.

You can disable the ability to recieve MMS and parental controls are easier now.

forgetmenots · 02/04/2013 13:12

I'm oddly heartened by the responses to this, expecting my first DC in a matter of weeks and I worry about all of these things.
The people saying it's always been like this, though, are of course right. When I think about some of the things that went on when I was at school and how they were handled I really think it would be better these days.

Genuine thanks ladies for a bit of perspective.

Flip

1 2

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.