T A B L E__T A L K

How can parents and teachers revive the imagination of young women? Share ideas in the Mother's section of Table Talk.

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R E C E N T L Y

Outing your mom
By Kate Moses
The recent spate of mad mother memoirs
(12/08/97)

Boyfriend-In-A-Box
By Lori Leibovich
Men: Can't live with 'em, can't stuff 'em in a drawer
(12/05/97)

The grace of klutz
By Anne Lamott
The night I humiliated myself onstage with Grace Paley
(12/04/97)

The good doctor
By Caroline Leavitt
Why I love my OB
(12/03/97)

Time for one thing
By Kate Moses
If you've been drinking my eggnog, you better not drive
(12/02/97)

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BROWSE THE
MOTHERS ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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Do you have any children? And if so, do they go online?

I have an 11-year-old son and a 13-year-old daughter. As far as I can tell, they don't seem interested at the moment, in looking at erotic material. My son is a webmaster of a popular video game site.

If the worst thing that happens is that my children fantasize about normal sexual activities -- and by normal I include both gay and straight -- it's not the end of the world. I did that when I was a teenager; I looked in books and magazines. I fantasized about how great it would be to make love to a woman. I think you need to put it in perspective. I have to agree that there is material on the Internet that is far more disturbing, but parents need to understand what they were like when they were kids -- not to condone this but to try not to freak out.

You suggest that parents talk with their children prior to going online. What do you advise them?

These are my rules for online safety for children: Never give your name or your school name out; never give out any information that could possibly identify you so that somebody who you encounter online could come and hurt you. Be aware that when you are online, you are in public and you don't know who is out there. I have told my children that there are places online that could make them feel uncomfortable, that I don't want them to go to those sites -- and if they go to a site that is obviously for adults they should leave that site right away, and then let me know about it.

In fact, my son gets a lot of porno spam, which is basically e-mail inviting him to visit adult-oriented Web sites. He forwards them to my e-mail account, and I, to the extent possible, do what I can. There is not so much you can do about it, but I am at least aware of it.

Critics of filtering and the talk-to-your-kid approach say that if the children really want to see a Web site, they will.

I don't have an answer to that. It doesn't matter what government does or what the industry does. They are fighting hormonal drives and human nature, and I cannot think of a time in history when people have not gone out of their way, children and adults, to look at pornography.

In attempting to block out "inappropriate" material, some educational content has been lost in the shuffle.

Sex education sites that teach AIDS prevention and birth control could be endangered, possibly even sites that teach women to do breast self-examinations. Any form of arbitrary rating that filters out material on a mechanistic basis is silly. We had cases on AOL where the word "breast" was banned from public forum, and breast cancer awareness forums were suddenly blocked. In Prodigy, they used to have this filter for their public forums and in their canine forum, the word "bitch" was banned, which happened to be a perfectly acceptable way to refer to a female dog. It is all a matter of context.

Do you think that we are paying too much attention to this issue, thereby ignoring more pressing issues that affect children?

What we have here is a real sound-bite issue. Pornography is a problem, I don't deny that. The number of predators that might sexually abuse or kidnap children is clearly a threat that we need to be aware of, but there are so many other things. One problem is companies encouraging children to reveal their identities on Web sites so they can market to them. There are also people who commit fraud; people who overcharge you; people who try to convince you that a particular product is not what it seems to be, like toy companies who promote toys that look a lot better on TV or on the Internet.

Could the initiatives proposed at the conference be a strategic maneuver by software makers to make money, to sell their products under the guise of "helping the children"?

I think companies like Surfwatch and NetNanny and others are up front that they are in the business of making money. I don't see it as anything unusual that companies capitalize on trying to make life better or healthier. That is what the system is all about. These companies tend to be fairly small but large enough to be profitable, like Surfwatch, which is owned by Spyglass, and Cyberpatrol, which is now owned by the Learning Company. We are not talking about Microsoft or AT&T or big corporations here.

Is it such a good idea to regulate a medium so early in its life? They are trying to stave off government regulations, but don't you think they risk killing the whole medium?

That has been one of the major arguments against the CDA, that this medium needs time to evolve, and the market has to decide. The other issue is the question of what is a community standard, what are the values we regulate? The government of Singapore has a set of standards, people in California have a standard -- nobody can agree on a set of standards. Some societies having a tendency to be very open and permissive, others having a tendency to be extremely oppressive, and restrictive. On a global medium, it is impossible to come to a community standard. That is an argument in favor of these rating and filtering softwares, the idea that the parent can make their own decisions, but I think there is some naiveté in that. The ACLU points out that in reality these systems are all based in a very similar set of values. Parents aren't going to really have a lot of choice as to how to employ them.
SALON | Dec. 9, 1997