Does anyone's 13 year old daughter want a pen pal?

[QueenUnholyChaosVII]

This is real - and I am real - long term poster (t-rexing, cutted-up pear, Suzy Quatro's fat nan). Obviously we will have to check each other out for safety before going ahead - if anyone is interested.

My thirteen year old daughter is interested in music, art, likes socialising, likes writing, is very thoughtful, has a really nice group of friends in real life and has suddenly (but persistently) announced that she would like a pen friend. I immediately thought of my friends who have children the right age and then I thought it might be interesting - and kind of freer - for her to be communicating with someone who isn't through me. Obviously so she can bitch about me if she wants to (we have a great relationship but I am sure I drive her mad at times). But also just for that wonderful sense of something being all your own, that is wonderful when you are that age.

sorry if this is going to sound a bit fascist but I won't be encouraging a friendship with any kids who are going down a gender rabbit hole (no signs of that here, won't be encouraging it). If that is your kid I wish you well but I would rather not be getting into that.

Does anyone feel that they have a similar 13 year old girl who would like to pair up?

If you're advertising for friends for your minor on the internet, I think the last thing you have to worry about is whether they are 'going down a gender rabbit hole' as you so ineloquently put it.

I would ask your real life friends if anyone knows a 13 year old who would like a penpal. I know some people with DDs I could ask if you were my friend, but I certainly wouldn't offer them up online.
I think it's a nice idea, but you have to be really sure that it is a child they are writing to, vetting through a friend would be good enough for me.

So - this is perhaps dangerous and inadvisable because the respondents may not be who they say they are. so - the fear there is "The OP's kid is innocent, the OP is rather a fool, the people who approach are possibly or even probably dangerous". Ok.

there is another horrible position being voiced here which is more along the lines of:

"it is so obviously the case that minors engaging with unknown people online is specifically coded to be about sex that there is something creepily wrong with the OP message itself"

That is pretty horrific.

I am assuming for these people it is to do with being a minor, because we aren't all looking for sex are we, when we come here to talk? Ok we know there are creeps on here but that doesn't mean that every woman who comes here to post with people she doesn't know already is automatically a pervert?

Or if you go to a work networking event or a baby group in a new area or something - sure they unfortunately do attract creeps too. But don't most people at them go in good faith to make friends / work contacts? Isn't it a completely legit thing to do to decide to go and meet and new people and then make judgements about which ones you want in your life or not?

So if you are saying "mmmmm bad idea, could be unsafe OP, think again" - fair enough

but if are you saying "actually we all KNOW "13 year old online = sex" FROM THE ACTUAL OUTSET so there is something wrong with YOU" - well the world has changed a lot, an awful lot over the past few years.

OP - give it up, no point in getting angry at posters who are simply worried for your DD. Obviously you aren’t going to get the answer that you are looking for on MN and posters are (rightly so) voicing their concerns re: child protection and safety. It is absolutely impossible to fully vet a stranger on the internet, this is nothing to do with the world changing - it’s just fact. People are no longer as naive as they used to be which is a good thing

I'm not angry. I am not arguing that it's not unsafe. I am making a completely different point that has gone over your head I think

you know how in sexist language that has become commonplace, "blonde" means sexy - so "who's the blonde" conjures up a picture of a very specific flirtatious kind of woman with blonde hair, even though the world is full of fair haired people of all ages and sexes living their lives

it seems "13 year old" now carries the same connnotations for some

which EW

you can either see it and be interested in it or not, but you can stop attacking me because I have, long ago, as you suggest, given up

What? Who's the blonde is sexual? 🤣 It's just a descriptor. What a bizarre thread.

I wouldn’t be setting my daughter up with a stranger on the internet and giving them an address or even an email address to build a friendship with my teenager. However much ‘vetting’ I thought I had done.

https://www.ipfworld.com/international-pen-friends-faq.html#postal

I'm not saying I would do this, but as a minimum if going ahead, I would use an existing organisation - and as this one mentions in its FAQs I would either set up a PO Box or ask to use the school's address.

In the olden days, my penfriends were people I met on holiday THEN started writing to.

This is insane OP. Please do not do this. She can get a pen pal from school! Ask her teacher to facilitate it. When I was younger my teacher got our class pen pals from a school in South Korea. I'm still friends with my pen pal (although it's on Facebook now) more than 40 years later.