After picking my nine-year-old son up from school the other day, I asked him to sit next to me on the couch. I told him I loved him, reminded him that I would never be angry at him for being honest and then, with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, proceeded to gently ascertain whether or not he had seen pornography on the Internet while at a friend’s house.
The boy’s mother had phoned me the previous evening and described the chain of events which had seemingly led to her discovery. My instincts told me that if they’d somehow managed to find their way to porn, it was probably inadvertent, and this was the message I did my best to convey to the other mother. Not that it mattered in the grand scheme of things, but if there was any small semblance of comfort that I could draw on, it was in thinking that these sites were reached by accident and not on purpose.
My head was reeling, though. Had my son seen pornographic imagery? What was even worse was that I couldn’t seem to dismiss the notion that my sweet but savvy nine-year-old, without understanding the implications of what he was doing, might have initiated things with an “innocent” search for various easy-to-spell body parts and terms. That made me feel horrible, because as one of my best friends pointed out, I’d gone from having no idea that my son might be involved in something like this to making him the ringleader. While I’ve done my best not to be one of those mothers who believes her child is incapable of doing wrong, it was frightening to think that I could so easily sway in the other direction even though no accusations had been made. And, if all that wasn’t enough, I thought about the role I may have played as a parent, wondering if information I’d exposed him to had given him the knowledge and tools he’d needed to accomplish something like this. I was wracked with guilt, and as I passed the morning trying to get work done (and not succeeding), I knew that I was not doing a very good job of keeping it together.
Teaching my son about Internet safety has come as naturally to me as teaching him about road safety, “stranger danger” and being respectful of others. I’ve taken multiple opportunities to remind him never to click links and banners that appear on otherwise innocent websites for kids, never to use his real name online and never to engage in chats or any other online exchanges with anyone. I’d see tragic stories in the media about children who were victimized online, and by sheer coincidence, discussed these issues several times during the past few weeks with that same best friend from above after he attended a lecture by one of Israel’s foremost experts on the subject and came away from it shocked by the stories he’d heard.
We wanted to arrange for our children’s school to host the same lecture, and it suddenly took on a heightened sense of urgency. As we talked about Internet safety and dangers to children on an abstract level, it simply hadn’t occurred to me that I’d need to tackle this subject at home at the same time. After all, I reasoned, I was aware of these dangers and very proactive in my efforts to minimize them, both in terms of technology and practicalities.
And yet, here I was, feeling nauseous and watching my son squirm with discomfort as I carefully tried to find out what he’d done and seen at a friend’s house – which turned out to be nothing. I attempted to guide him with my questions and chose my words very cautiously, wanting to know what had transpired without conjuring up unnecessary imagery. I could tell from his answers and his body language that he genuinely had no idea where I was going or what I was trying to figure out. He provided a very plausible explanation for what he and his friend had been doing (watching animated clips of Mr. Bean, as it turned out), and I believed him.
The overwhelming sense of relief I felt was mixed with anger from having to put him through such an ordeal, and as I took a few moments to phone my friend in order to let him know that my son wasn’t involved, I could actually feel my body sag as my words released all of the stress that had plagued me since the previous night’s phone call. I’d thought of little else and slept very badly, and as the tension drained away, I felt completely spent, both mentally and physically. The passing days have done little to diminish those feelings (especially as a great deal of time has been spent drafting an email with the other members of the school’s Media team about Internet safety for children and sending it out to the school community). Frankly, I just want the week to end so that I can put it behind me, drawing comfort from the fact that while I may be shaken up, my son’s innocence (such that it is) is still intact and that this has just as much to do with luck as with my ability to handle the darker bits of parenting in a way that actually makes me feel proud.
