I can become easily annoyed when I'm in line at the grocery store behind someone who is using their cell phone instead of paying the waiting cashier. Yes, I can become annoyed.
Or I can become easily annoyed watching the swerving car in front of me on the expressway, when I realize the person driving is on their cell phone. Yes, I can become annoyed.
But reading the following article has me seriously annoyed!
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/09/earlyshow/main4657004.shtml
If you didn't take the time to click my link, I'll summarize briefly. Apparently, a couple of teenage cheerleaders decided to take naked pictures of each other on their cell phones. Then, they did text message the pictures to at least one person. Well, naturally, the pictures were forwarded to several people from there. The pictures were being circulated throughout the whole school.
The mother of one of the teenage girls, who is a minor, is now suing the school district, because she said they didn't investigate who the pictures were sent to and who they were sent from. It was mentioned in the article that the school district is taking an attitude of 'boys will be boys'. The mother is also suing the district, because she thinks that her daughter's one-year suspension from the cheerleading squad is too severe. The mother felt that the senders and receivers should have been punished more.
How can a mother possibly think she's doing the right thing by her daughter by suing the school district? I would probably say, "Gee, too bad, you lost a whole year of cheerleading, I mean what you did was WRONG!" Or how about saying, "They sent them on to their friends? Just what did you think they would do with those pictures? Delete them! Nah!"
I'm being a bit sarcastic here. I think the mom is sending a message to her daughter that when you do something wrong, it's okay. We'll find someone else who's done something equally or more wrong, then we can nail them, AND get you off the hook.
If she were my daughter, we'd be having a discussion of being responsible for our actions. When we do a really 'no brainer' thing, we pay a price. Yes, what the senders of the pictures did was wrong, but you started the chain reaction!
Anyway, we had an incident in our small school district where a football player took a picture of another football player while he was in the shower. The boy in the shower immediately jumped all over the kid and told him to delete the picture. The picture taker deleted the picture on his cell phone and showed the showering boy that he had.
Not the end of the story....the picture taker retrieved the photo out of his 'trash' file on his cell phone (I didn't know you could do that) and sent it to about 10 different people. Apparently, the next day a girl showed the picture to a teacher, because she was concerned that it was being sent to numerous people in the school.
Our school district immediately kicked the picture taker off the football team. No, his parents didn't fight the matter in the least.
Both boys parents were called in to school to discuss the matter. The mother of the showering boy found out that there is a company that you can contact that can trace all text messages to and from any cell phone if they have the cell phone in their possession.
I had talked to this mom and she wasn't even sure if she was going to pursue the whole thing with the police. I was surprised, but I also understood. She said that her son was often picked on and bullied to begin with. If she pursued this whole thing, she wondered if it would continue or get worse. She also said that her son was so thoroughly humiliated that he wanted her to just 'drop the whole thing.'
I understand! I truly do! Do you force your son through more agony and stress over the whole situation? Do you just let it lie?
Obviously, the situation at our school was a bit different than the situation of the girls sending their own nudie pictures out for public view. There was a victim in the situation at our school, but the teenage cheerleaders made themselves victims.
What do you think? Would you take the side of the girls who made themselves victims or do you think they got what they deserved?
6 comments:
We had an incident in our school system of a 7th grade girl from another culture (read foreign country) who posted nude pictures of herself on the internet with the help of her sister. The next year, she was arrested for bringing a bottle of whisky to a high school football game and passing it around the middle school section resulting in some drunk minors in a place where no alcohol is allowed regardless of age. The following year she was reported to have been "selling favors" and was once again sent away for abuse of prescription drugs and possession of prescription drugs on campus and the providing of said drugs to others.
The parents have never been asked to take parenting classes and don't seem to understand that, even though their daughters were adopted from another culture where all this is commonplace, what they are doing is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
At some point someone must suffer the consequences of their own actions. From what you note of the cheerleaders and the mother, I suspect this mother will be a grandmother sooner rather than later. Then what will she do?
I absolutely agree with you that the mom suing the school district is completely in the wrong. I think you translated her message very clearly. Obviously she doesn't realize she's sending this message. People like this make me so grumpy!
Jennifer, they make me very grumpy, too! Unfortunately, since I work in a school district, I find this to be a very common issue. Parents send the wrong message, then they wonder what went wrong!
Ehart, you're right, this girl will probably make her mother a grandmother before she'd like to be one.
I just can't believe this stuff that is going on!!! In my opinion, the girls probably WANTED the pictures to be widely spread. They evidently were not ashamed of themselves to be taking these pictures in the first place and THEN sending them forward. They probably wanted the attention and admiration or whatever you want to call it. Maybe they did it this photoshoot and sending while drunk, and regretted later, but the fact remains most people would not send a nude picture of themselves to no one even if they were extremely drunk. So it was planned and as you said no brainer when it comes to boys sharing these pictures... Unbelievable.
And on the other hand I HATE people creating UNNECESSARY fuss and trouble like this. Mothers suing the school district... Come on! There are million of other causes that would deserve the energy and devotion much more worthy than this... ...
Oh, getting so annoyed with the school girl thing I forgot why I came here. To thank you for your comment on one minute writer. I think it is WONDERFUL you are still crazy in love with your husband after 24 years together. That is a great blessing!
Ida, LOL! Yes, I think the girls in this incident truly wanted people to see their pictures.
If I were the mother of one of these teenage girls I would be spending my energy on finding out why they would want to do this in the first place, not blaming the school or 'the boys'.
Thanks for posting! I love the One Minute Writer!
Yes, my hubby is a real blessing to me.
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