Uprising - aka "Why kids shouldn't have facebook"

"Rise up and take the power back” says the song “Uprising” by Muse and just recently that is exactly what I’ve felt I needed to do.

As a father (three kids that I know about and am admitting to) and a "common law step father" of a further three I think I’m more qualified than most to comment on issues with children as they grow up.  Pre-kids, we are all pretty judgemental, aren't we?  My offspring certainly weren't going to behave like the spoilt brats raised by <insert bad parents names here>.

Oh, if it were so easy.  But, when you have to work so hard to provide the phenomenal amount of cash needed to raise a family, you really don’t have the energy for all those battles. One child is a handful and more than one is a houseful.  The third and upwards make no difference; you can only get exhausted to a certain level.  We therefore tend to take the easy way out and sit the children in front of the TV just to get some peace.  It's such hard work to be a strong parent and so easy to give in so you can preserve your sanity.

But do we actually know what our kids are watching?  With so many channels these days, 99% of programmes are absolute garbage.

With Sky (and maybe other digital TV providers), there are parental controls to stop your children viewing anything “unsuitable”.  Well, unfortunately this just means programmes with adult content and it doesn’t cover Jeremy Kyle, Jerry Springer, Embarrassing Bodies or any other daytime TV trash that deals with themes that children really shouldn’t be exposed to.  And you have to remember another pin code or password (as if we didn't have enough numbers to remember).

Then there's the internet… the most uncensored, 24/7 available source of filth and depravity ever known to man. Yet we buy our children laptops, ipads, smartphones and other devices that enable them to be online at any given time.  Yes, yes, I know that there are parental controls for that as well (with more passwords), but how many parents are computer savvy enough to a) activate them and b) make them hacker proof?  Because every teenage child will suddenly discover a friend who is as good as hacker as that girl from the film “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” (go see it – brilliant) and there are few boundaries that can be placed by Mr and Mrs Average-Parent that will keep children absolutely safe online.

This is beginning to sound like a rant, which I didn't intend it to.  However, just recently, we have suffered a series of events that has prompted this.  I live with my partner and her three girls, two of whom are teenagers and one is 11.   They all are addicted to faceache, sorry, facebook and have been spending so much time on it that school work was suffering.  I therefore set up a new user on the PC called “Kids” and passworded it.  Through Windows Family Safety, I have it to be logged off every evening at 10pm.  Plenty late enough I think. I have also created an unrestricted user called "Homework" that they could log into anytime for school work and it has all social networks blocked. I'm only reasonably computer literate and it was easy to do.

There were protestations initially, but then we discovered they were accessing the internet via their phones.  So we called the supplier and had the internet mobile package turned off (yes, you can) and now they can’t access facebook via their phones AT ALL.  Unless they knew the Wi-Fi password for the router… so I had to change that too. 

I'll now tell you the good reasons for this clampdown.  A few months back, one of our girls (We'll call her Alison) got into a playground spat with a girl at her school over nothing very much. In the olden days (when I was a kid) playground arguments lasted until going home time and then generally it was all over.  But now, via facebook, these disagreements continue into the evening and many, many more people can get involved, with "inboxing" all over the place, winding the whole situation up.  The upshot is that Alison came face to face with her tormentor in town (or “tahn” as it’s more commonly known) and then got beaten up.  It was bad enough to call the police and get crime photos taken.  The assailant will be arrested, probably expelled and Alison is now terrified of repercussions.  People are so brave behind a keyboard...

Added to this, another one of the girls (Betty) has that other device that is becoming a downright nuisance as well…A BLACKBERRY!  With their BBM facility (Blackberry messenger for those who don’t know), here is another medium for dramas to not only fester but develop.  She was becoming almost reclusive, totally didn’t want to be anywhere near anyone else in the family at all (‘cos it’s borin’, innit?) and spent every waking hour either winding people up on facebook, slouched across a sofa BBM-ing people or being stroppy to her sisters.  Occasionally she’d come out with some gems, like;

Betty – I’ve bin invi’ed to a par-eee (That’s “I’ve been invited to a party”, for those unfamiliar with The Only Way Is Essex.)

Me – Whose?

Betty – A friend.

Me – Which friend?

Betty – Tallulah. You don’ know ‘er, she’s like, a friend of Jasmine's friend Trixie. I like met her like las’ week in tahn.

Me – When and where is the party?

Betty – Dunno…  It’s on facebook… she’s got like 865 friends and they’re like all going.

Me – Well I don’t think you’ll be.

Betty – Aw, Sha’ up!  Thass not fair. Ohmygod.  I’ll be the only one not going.

Me – I don’t think you will actually.   A house party that size sounds like trouble and anyway you’re not old enough.

Betty – Ohmygod, AS IF!  You just wanna stop everyfing I do. O.M.G.

And so on and so on.

Anyway, we have now possibly solved the problem.  The Blackberry has been confiscated and she has been provided with a more regular “phone” – you know, one that just makes calls and sends texts.  She was distraught at first and kept saying “Ohmygod how will I get to school?” (Yes, seriously.  Like the phone has doors, wheels and drops her off.). But, after a few days, she – by even her own admission – became a nicer person, less angry, less stroppy and has started to integrate into the family more.  Also, we have temporarily banned the internet other than on the “Homework” user.   All the girls are being nicer to each other and we have just had a drama free weekend.

So, if all this rings a familiar tune, I do recommend that you take steps to get the power back.  Children need boundaries and also need to know who's in charge.  We must keep them safe.

What I must do now is keep these extra passwords safe too and in a place they won’t see them.  The laundry basket seems as good a place as any; nothing ever finds its way in there.

Happy New Bloody Year.

Hello 2012, Goodbye 2011.

On the one hand I can't say I'm too sad.  It was the year I finally got divorced, finally became debt free and found myself having to start again with only 15 years left until retirement.  Barely long enough to get enough in the bank to provide for my decrepitude I feel, so the chances are I'll be still working well into my 70's.

However, despite the drama, there have been worse years.  2007 and 2008 for a start, both being right up there as the worst of my life.   That was when I realised that my nearly 20 year marriage was on life support with the doctors about to switch the machine off.  A three month trial separation at the end of 2007 was greeted by a very quick decision by the ex at the beginning of 2008 to hang the "Do Not Resuscitate" sign on the matrimonial door... well, Happy New Bloody Year!   The divorce itself, whilst not acrimonious (although it has had it's moments) has felt a bit like that old TV soap El Dorado; it has just seemed to rumble on with not very much happening and then suddenly came to an abrupt end. My only wish was that the process had been as short as El Dorado, which was only aired for a year.  My Decree Absolute took over four years to get issued. 

Far too much has happened since then to be the subject of one blog post.  However, suffice to say there was a lot of fun mixed in with the pain, anguish, financial struggle and I have to say it has all turned out very well.  I'll provide little snippets and gems (including some dating disasters and experiences) through this blog, but the one I'll share with you now inspired the title.

When you suddenly find yourself on your own, with a family to support as well as providing for yourself, financial sacrifices have to be made.  With firm commitments, like mortgage payments and rent, there is only so much you can do, but I did discover the benefits of loyalty card points and vouchers.  Those little things can make quite a difference.  Rather than have loads of cards with points all spread about, I decided to focus on two specific cards; Tesco and Nectar.

I therefore started shopping at places that took the Nectar card, linked my firms office stationery order to it and built up a decent balance.  I had intended to redeem them at Christmas, maybe to get a case of wine that would act as presents for friends, that sort of thing.  My summer Nectar statement had showed a balance of nearly 50,000 points, so I logged on to my account in the November to see how many more had been added. 

It was therefore quite a shock to see a points balance of zero.

Zero?  ZERO?  How on earth...

Looking back through the account I then saw that the points had all been redeemed.  Not by me they hadn't... and then I remembered that the ex had a card also.  I rang Nectar and they confirmed it was a card linked to my account and yes, the points had been encashed already by her.

So, what to do... not much really, except cancel her card, which I did.  She eventually discovered this, presumably the next time she wanted to redeem them and was greeted by an "Unable to access this account" message.

Through some quirk in the Nectar system however, she had still been adding points on her card via her purchases, but into my account, despite the card itself being cancelled!  She had spoken to Nectar and apparently, if I agreed, then the points could have been transferred back to her card, but only on an "all or nothing" basis.  As she'd already had the benefit of all my points once, I didn't feel benevolent enough to agree to that. I think that's karma for you.  Little victories, which, generally speaking, is all men can hope for in the Divorce Courts.

So, let's ring in 2012 - an Olympic Year - and decide whether or not we will be here this time next year.  After all, the Mayans prophesised that the world would end just before next Christmas... or did they?  As the end of the world within twelve months seems increasingly unlikely, the interpretations of the Mayan prophecies have changed.  Personally, I just feel they got fed up of plotting a future calendar, or perhaps even ran out of material to write it all down on.  These days of course, the storage of data is becoming less of a problem as we are all using "the cloud" (I wonder how that affects flights?  Does this mean extra turbulence with all those bytes of data floating around up there?) and I fear for the younger generation in this modern era and the way they communicate.  The wonders of facebook, twitter, mobile phones etc. enable people to keep in touch every minute of every hour of every day.  And they do.  Now in some ways, this is a really good thing - but sadly, such devices, programs and "apps" are widely available to people who really don't know how to use them properly or, more importantly, do not know how to behave online.  Yes, I'm particularly talking about young children here - and more about that in my next blog - "Why children shouldn't have facebook."

Thanks for reading, all comments welcomed.