Tuesday, December 04, 2007

It makes me sick and angry!

Over the past couple of weeks there has been an ongoing story in the news about a young girl (Megan) from Missouri that committed suicide because of a neighbor that, through her children, created a fake MySpace profile and lead this girl to believe there was a young boy who was "interested" in her.

Over the period of a month or so the woman behind the fake profile, her own daughter and one of her daughters friends carried on the charade of being a young boy named "Josh" who would send flattering messages leading this young girl to think that he was interested in her. You can read the CNN.com article about this story HERE.

To make this post so it's not so long I'll give you a brief synopsis. The fake MySpace profile was created so that the older woman could gain this young girls trust to find out what, if anything, this girl was saying about her own daughter. In the end "Josh" sent a message to Megan telling her she was a bad person and the world would be better off without her. Within hours, Megan had committed suicide.

That was over a year ago, it was finally announced yesterday that following the law, it is not possible to charge the adult who created the fictitious MySpace profile with a crime. I do understand that prosecutors have to follow the law, that if they don't they open themselves up for lawsuits and other problems. But what I don't understand is how our laws can continue to allow this kind of stuff to continue to be done to our young people!

People are constantly asking why our young people are the way they are today. Could it be because parents like this one lead their children to think that it is acceptable to do things like this to their peers? Could it be because by doing things like this they are teaching their children that it is perfectly acceptable to deceive someone just so that you can get what you want out of them? Could it be because they are teaching their children that trust and honesty have absolutely no value? And could it also be because our laws in this country allow people to get away with doing things like this over and over and over again? And when are we, as parents, going to stand up and teach our children that doing things like this are totally unacceptable?

What is it going to take for our laws to be changed so that children are protected against crimes like this? How many more children are going to have to be bullied, humiliated and intimidated to the point of harming themselves or others before we say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH? Yes, kids will be kids and we won't ever stop them from being cruel, but there is a world of difference between being cruel and being a bully! How many more children are going to have to suffer at the hands of an online bully before we write the laws that are necessary to protect them?

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