If you read through my daughters' Twitter feeds, Tumblr blogs, Instagram accounts or other social media, it is quickly obvious that they are abused, suicidal, violent, trampy stoners. My post of "Finally warming up with a hot chocolate from Starbuck's and time with my girls" has a corresponding post that reads, "God, Starbucks sucks. All these people are in here acting so stupid. Just wanna die". The picture a girlfriend posts of her sweet children in matching Christmas sweaters goes up right behind my kid's post of a unicorn smoking a giant joint. My tweet about, "Shopping and lunch with my girls - Yahoo" goes up at the same time a girl tweets "I hate the mall. Gonna have to barf up this lunch to fit into my jeans". There just aren't many cheery posts from the teens. Sounds dismal, right?
I thought it was just my girls, but if you scan through social media, it seems to be the majority of young teens. Being happy and having a good life is not cool enough to get you any followers, which somehow gets tied into your friends. It isn't okay to like your parents, be content with your stuff or think you look nice. It is fine though to be confused, think you're fat, be depressed or desire some sort of mistreatment.
Turns out, right now it is cool to be 'bad' in media, but not necessarily bad in real life. I am not really okay with that. I'd really like the girls to avoid the negative references that they seem to obsess over, but I haven't found the solution.
I am not stupid either. Since I know they've got friends who actually do behave badly, my girls know they will be randomly drug tested, stalked by Mom and Dad, and chaperoned most of the time. However, the fact is I have good kids. They are smart, beautiful girls who will one day appreciate those qualities in themselves. In the mean time, I've got to try and figure out what they really need help with and take some action. Being a mom is hard.
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