children and the internet

Jesus, who is labelled “anime titties” is intervening between two business men in suits and acting as their liaison, who are in turn labelled “me, an innocent kid” and “the internet”

How do I straddle the fine line between shielding my future children from the degeneracy of civilization while at the same time, allowing them to learn from trial and error and reap the artisic benefits of music and the arts? What is my responsibility as father and creator? I relate a lot to God the father in that aspect - I cannot force my children to walk the good path nor expect them to fully see the merit in doing so until much later in life when they decide to embark on the same journey of being a good role model. Being accountable to my future offspring has really forced me to clean up my act and think longer term as to what I choose to spend my time doing.

One approach is simply to visualize the archtypical urban upbringing and avoid common pitfalls - the biggest by far being access to hardcore porn. The common story is neighborhood children convincing a fellow nine year old to find a secluded corner of the house and look at some “crazy videos”. That could easily be avoided by not having easy access to the internet, either by not having internet at home or not having a personal computer. These days, smartphones with 24/7 data make this much harder, but that itself can be mended by not giving a 9 year old a smartphone in the first place.

Whatever the technology of the week may be, the objective is information control. Books, music, videos, internet access, games - everything should be consumed in common spaces. Counterintuitively, forcing these interactions with media to be more open allow me to be more restrictive. However, the same applies to me; everything I do will be out in the open to be scrutinized and learned from, so no more spicy memes, no more anime, and no more headphones; everybody gets stereo speakers. One computer and one user account for the whole family - annoying, but for the greater good.

Of course, this plan isn’t set in stone. If you have more suggestions, hit me up as always.