... from actress Pamela Adlon, paraphrasing: "My daughter watches The Bachelorette and I watch it with her, which feels really dirty and bad and awful, like I'm watching porn with my 13-year-old. But we can't monitor what kids watch anymore. Parents are in a lot of denial: 'My kid's not on the internet.' Really? Well you're a fucking idiot, because kids are watching ISIS behead people on cell phones. So I tell my daughter, 'It's all out there, and it's your choice, but I'm telling you if you see certain things, it will stay with you. You can't un-see it.'"
I tend to agree. I know with any mischievousness and ingenuity whatsoever – and even the angelic ones have that – kids can pretty much see anything online. Obscene, gruesome, you name it. It's scary. It's alarming for me as a parent, and I don't have a meaningful reference point from my youth; we had dirty magazines and videos, and I saw some, but inappropriate content wasn't accessible on devices all around me via cloud or online galleries and websites. Even the niftiest parental controls are pointless when they're teenagers. So I'm trying two things: 1) I talk to Michael about respect, decency, reality, integrity, character, and 2) I give Michael the warning from Pamela Adlon above, and I add: You have to police yourself at times, be your own filter; you know what's right. Take care of your mind. Guard it; protect it; it sounds corny but it's true. What you put on the 'movie screen' in your head, and then into your rushing, repeating thought-stream, can be very good or very bad for you; your thoughts are impactful; they're sensitive; they're nearly everything that's you, this can't be overstated. Nobody's perfect, but don't be a dirtbag. Maybe I should revise that last sentence?
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