Reflections From a Murky Pond

Childhood ends, and with it normally ends many of our flights of fancy, our whimsy, and wonder at the world. So too end the lives we created for our imaginary playmates, if we had any. For the most part we grow up, put “childish things” behind us, and start the long – often dreary and tedious – process of making some accommodation with the world at large.

Indeed, if Calvin & Hobbes were to mimic reality, it was foredoomed that someday Calvin would outgrow his tigerish playmate and Hobbes would cease to exist except as occasionally dredged up memory of Calvin’s lost childhood.

The Last Calvin & Hobbes Cartoon?

There is a certain sadness that this happens at all. There is a far greater sadness in how young many children are these days when it happens.

That it happens, however, all too often because parents and teachers find the often unfocused energies and fantasies of their children to be too difficult or too inconvenient to deal with causes me far more anger than sadness – both at the proximate perpetrators and at our society, which makes their actions seemingly logical and for the children’s benefit.

~*~

NOTE: The above cartoon wasn’t actually the last Calvin & Hobbes cartoon. Bill Watterson ended the series on December 31, 1995, on a much more hopeful and upbeat note. It ended with Calvin and Hobbes hopping on a sled and going exploring.

According to a survey released by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy approximately 20% all teens – 21% of teen girls and 18% of teen boys – have sent or posted a nude photo of themselves to someone else electronically. It seems that the teens refer to this as “sexting.”

While some people may see no problem with sexting and others may be shocked and outraged by such adolescent sexualization, the immediate issue is that teen sexting is illegal. It’s a felony! The teenagers can be charged with possessing and distributing child pornography – even when it’s images of themselves.

Recently Police in Greensburg, PA arrested six teenagers, three girls for trafficking of child pornography and three boys for possession of child pornography. Police in Greensburg said a 14-year-old girl and two 15-year-old girls at Greensburg Salem High School sent the pictures to their teenage boyfriends, who are 15, 16 and 17 years old respectively. All six are currently facing felony charges.

From WTAE-TV:

It’s very dangerous. Once it’s on a cell phone, it can be put on the Internet where everybody in the world can get access to that picture. You don’t realize what you’re doing until it’s already done.

If these do get on the Internet, anybody can get a hold of them, and who knows what they are going to do with them. That’s the biggest thing. Taking nude pictures of yourself — nothing good can come out of it. The best thing to do is to use a phone for what a phone is made for — talking to people. If you’re taking pictures, make sure the picture is of something that isn’t illegal

– Capt. George Seranko
Greensburg Police Department

Greensburg police said that they’re concerned the nude or semi-nude pictures of the teenage girls have circulated beyond their boyfriends, meaning that even more students could be arrested and charged with possession of child pornography, a Class 3 felony under Pennsylvania laws.

The Greensburg police’s response to the teenagers’ sexting is not a lone incident.  Police departments and Prosecutors across America have taken a stern and punitive stance against sexting.

• In Ohio, a 19-year-old cheerleading coach was convicted of indecency charges after taking a topless photo of herself and a 15-year-old girl
• In Texas, a 13-year-old boy was arrested on child pornography charges, after receiving a nude photo of a fellow student on his cellular phone.
• In Wisconsin, a 17-year-old was charged with child pornography after posting naked pictures of his 16-year-old girlfriend on the internet.
• In New York, 16-year-old boy faces seven years in jail for circulating an image of a girlfriend to friends.

Child pornography or “kiddie porn” is fairly close to being the lowest, vilest, and most reprehensible crimes misborn out of the evil of men’s minds and America need strong laws in order to combat such disgusting, abhorrent and depraved behavior – but this is ridiculous! I cannot believe that charging teenagers with disseminating and/or possessing child pornography for sharing nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves with their friends was ever the intent of the laws in question.

What possible beneficial societal purpose can be achieved by arresting teens for sexting nude pictures of themselves? Does it seem sensible to burden them with a felony record and to force them to spend the rest of their lives on the Sexual Offender Registry?

According to Joel Stein of the LA Times, a certain social class of parents in America is doing their children a grave and possibly dangerous disservice by imagining or overinflating their children’s food allergies.

Your kid doesn’t have an allergy to nuts. Your kid has a parent who needs to feel special. Your kid also spends recess running and screaming, “No! Stop! Don’t rub my head with peanut butter!”

Yes, a tiny number of kids have severe peanut allergies that cause anaphylactic shock, and all their teachers should be warned, handed EpiPens and given a really expensive gift at Christmas. But unless you’re a character on “Heroes,” genes don’t mutate fast enough to have caused an 18% increase in childhood food allergies between 1997 and 2007. And genes certainly don’t cause 25% of parents to believe that their kids have food allergies, when 4% do. Yuppiedom does.

– Joel Stein
LA Times – Opinion Column

To be fair, Stein is nothing even close to being an expert on genetics, human immuno systems,  or allergens. He completely ignores  gene expression, David P. Strachan’s Hygiene Hypothesis, and the very real possibility of increased allergic sensitization being caused by multiple unrelated environmental factors that are affecting the subjects’ immune systems.  Stein does make a good point though, despite his column’s shortcomings.

I’ve noticed the trend myself towards over-diagnosis of various conditions in children. ADD, ADHD, and others. It’s very much as if segments of the American population have collectively contracted Münchausen syndrome – technically Münchausen syndrome by proxy (MSbP / MSP) – and are busy gaining attention, sympathy, and an ongoing excuse for bad parenting by claiming their children are afflicted with a variety of disorders. It really wouldn’t be all that surprising that this syndrome extended to allergies as well.

That America is developing into a Münchausen’s Society seem apparent to me. What is less apparent is why swaths of our society are creating ailments for the children. Do these parents crave attention? That would be classic motivation in a case of Münchausen’s syndrome.

Is this condition a derivative result of the foolishness of propagating the “everyone is special” mentality? In the absence of any positive specialness on the part of their children or themselves, it’s possible that a negative specialness or handicap would suffice in th minds of some people.

Or is it nothing more an easy excuse for parents to use when their lack of skills and commitment to parenthood result in monstrous offspring? In the case of the “yuppies,” they are the society or “establishment” so, unlike other social classes, they can’t easily blame society for their children. Perhaps they choose to blame unfeeling nature and random chance instead.

I just don’t know, but I do know that America’s growing Münchausen’s society is a very bad thing.