Fault Lines

If you screw up in life, just blame someone else. You’re perfect no matter what you do. When things go wrong, it’s never your fault.

This is the new mantra for parenting in the United States. Just this morning I had a seventh grade gifted student—and I use the term “gifted” only because the student has been identified as such by the school psychologist—return her library books four months beyond their due dates. The gifted student thought that it was rather funny that she had them out this long, but she wasn’t laughing when she was informed that she now has a $12 overdue fee to pay.

Later in the day, the gifted student’s mother stopped in the school library, as she works in the building, and she was informed of her gifted daughter’s inability to return books on time and the subsequent overdue fee (and I can assure you that she was informed of the fee in a professional manner). Unfortunately, Mommy was more upset with both me and my assistant as opposed to her being concerned with her gifted daughter’s ability to rack up higher overdue fees than any of the mainstream (non-gifted, that is) students.

She was more offended at the idea that we weren’t constantly reminding her gifted daughter to bring her books back. Mommy didn’t once seem concerned that her gifted daughter was unable to follow basic due-date policies that have been mastered by even the special education students in the building.

Then I came across a story which only made my blood boil a little more. It was, again, a story of parents who want to blame others for their children’s—as well as their own—failures in life. It comes to us from the Cincinnati Enquirer and states:

Jessica Logan’s nude cell-phone photo—meant for her boyfriend’s eyes only—was sent to hundreds of teenagers last year in at least seven Greater Cincinnati high schools.

The 18-year-old Sycamore High School senior was then bombarded with taunts: slut, porn queen, whore.

On July 3, Jessie hanged herself in her bedroom.

She was Albert and Cynthia Logan’s only child.

“My only baby that I will never be able to touch again,” Cynthia Logan said through tears. “I will never have grandchildren. I will never be able to hand down my heirlooms. I’m just devastated by these parents that allow their children to do and say anything they want.”

Now, Jessie’s parents are attempting to launch a national campaign seeking laws to address “sexting”—the practice of forwarding and posting sexually explicit cell-phone photos online. The Logans also want to warn teens of the harassment, humiliation and bullying that can occur when that photo gets forwarded.

Cynthia Logan and Parry Aftab, an attorney and one of the leading authorities on Internet security and cyberbullying, plan to attach Jessie’s name to a national campaign to educate teens about the dangers of sexting.

[...]

After the cell-phone photo was disseminated, Jessie’s outgoing personality turned inward.

The Logans blame a circle of five friends from three other high schools for forwarding the photo.

According to Cynthia Logan, Jessie took the photo and sent it to the boy she had been dating for one to two months. He, in turn, forwarded it to four girls, she said. Efforts to reach the former boyfriend were unsuccessful.

[...]

The Logans said Sycamore High School and the school resource officer didn’t do enough to help Jessie. Sycamore sent truancy notices, Cynthia Logan said, but no calls or letters about what was happening to her daughter in school and no notices to other parents about explicit cell-phone photos. And no charges were filed by the resource officer, she said.

[...]

Montgomery Officer Paul Payne, the school resource officer, said he confronted some of the girls who forwarded Jessie’s photo, even though they attend another school. He asked them to delete the photo from their phones.

“Could she have pressed charges? No, because she’s 18,” Payne said, adding that there were some areas that could have been explored. “The investigation stopped at her wish, because she basically didn’t want this to go any further. ... You respect the wishes of an 18-year-old. In the eyes of the law, she can make her own decision.”

Payne said he supports the Logans' efforts to change laws. “Let’s face it. The law hasn’t caught up to what the original law was designed for.”

[...]

Albert and Cynthia Logan have gone public with Jessie’s story, hoping to change vague state laws that don’t hold anyone accountable for sexting. They also want to warn kids about what can happen when nude cell-phone photos are shared.

“We want a bill passed,” Cynthia Logan said.

“It’s a national epidemic. Nobody is doing anything—no schools, no police officers, no adults, no attorneys, no one.”

I wasn’t sure where to begin by addressing the sheer stupidity and irresponsibility put forth by Mrs. Logan, so I’ll take it point-by-point:

• “I’m just devastated by these parents that allow their children to do and say anything they want.”
I’m glad that this comment appeared first in the story because it’s no doubt the biggest pile of horseshit to come out of this woman’s mouth. This comment is being said by someone who “allowed” her daughter to send nude photos of herself to other people, in this case a boyfriend. If we apply Mrs. Logan’s train of thought (i.e., if a son/daughter does something, it must be the parents’ fault), we must immediately blame her for her daughter’s act—the very act which caused this incident in the first place.

You’ll notice, however, that Mrs. Logan avoids blaming either her daughter or herself. How convenient.

• “The Logans blame a circle of five friends from three other high schools for forwarding the photo.”
Of course they blame everyone else. That became apparent with the first comment. But let’s see—if the photo didn’t exist in the first place, we wouldn’t have had any photo to disseminate, would we, Mrs. Logan? Who took the photo again? Oh, that’s right: your daughter.

• “[N]o charges were filed by the resource officer, [Mrs. Logan] said.”
I’m no lawyer, but I’ll bet that this has something to do with the fact that—obviously unbeknownst to Mrs. Logan—people in the United States who are 18 and older are no longer minors. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that it’s why the school’s resource officer said: “Could she have pressed charges? No, because she’s 18. The investigation stopped at her wish, because she basically didn’t want this to go any further...You respect the wishes of an 18-year-old. In the eyes of the law, she can make her own decision.”

Yes, you read that correctly: the investigation stopped at her request and she was 18 years of age, meaning that charges for possessing child pornography never came into play.

But that small point brings us to...

• “We want a bill passed,” Cynthia Logan said.
Of course you do. You want a bill passed that makes it illegal to...um...uh...wait a minute. Just what would this bill be making illegal, anyway? We have an 18-year-old girl sending a nude photo of herself to her boyfriend. Do you want the age of being considered an “adult” changed to something higher than 18?

We also have people sending the photo around to other people. Do you want that banned? Do you want a law making it illegal to send photos of consenting adults to other adults?

We also have people engaging in name-calling. Do you want that outlawed, Mrs. Logan? I mean, should it be illegal for us to refer to you as simple-minded and irresponsible? Is that what you’re referring to? Would that fall under your proposed law?

While it’s sad that a family lost a daughter, it’s even sadder to see the family pointing fingers at everyone but themselves and then hiding behind a call for knee-jerk legislation for their daughter’s shortsightedness and inability to cope with the consequences of sending nude photos.

Reference

Kranz, Cindy. “Family Wants Tougher Laws.” Cincinnati Enquirer. 22 Mar. 2009.

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