The New Tipper

Was trying like the dickens to remember exactly what PMRC stood for in my teens, and I think it was the Parent Music Resource Center (I totally didn't cheat and came up with that from memory).  I have no trouble remembering that Tipper Gore was at the forefront of the group who rallied to get music labeled and censored.  Following in the super-cool footsteps of my older cousin, Jenn, I often doodled the big no circle around bold PMRC letters, showing the world just what I thought of it telling me what I could and could not listen to.  I wrote and delivered many a speech in high school speech classes speaking of the dangers of censorship.  I believed even if I didn't quite understand.

And here I am, trying to make the internet a safe place for my kids to venture into.  Looking for recommendations for sites I should block and those we should support, unsure if the work I'm putting into it will be worth it in the end.  Because, really, how often will they go onto the computer without us knowing when they're almost never at home alone in the first place.  And the computer is in our bedroom.

Do I feel like a hypocrite?  Not at all.  It may sound contradictory to my usually live-and-let-live-inclined nature, but I believe in boundaries.  Just as we have deemed most rated R movies inappropriate viewing material for our kids, so are many websites that promote nudity, sexuality, and excessive violence.  And I can make these decisions for my kids because I know them.  I'm not making these choices for someone else's kids or for ALL kids--  I'm no Tipper Gore.  But it makes me feel all mixed up about ratings systems in general because as a parent, I like to have some idea about what my kids are consuming-- I just don't like how other people abuse those systems for their own greedy agendas.

Anyway, have you gone through this already?  Do you have any tips for me?  Oh, and just for the record, the kids always had access to the internet, but because it was usually on one of our laptops, we were always looming nearby, and access was really only on a need-to basis.  Please feel free to share any anecdotes or bits of advice if you have any.  Have a blessed week, everyone!