You know I really hate to get serious (most of the time), but when the State Police issued Vermont's very first
Amber Alert my perception of the small world and peaceful community that I have become accustomed to was initially shaken, but the more I read about the situation the less I worry about what "things are coming to these days". I feel badly for the family of
Brooke Bennett, I don't think any family should have to go through what they are dealing with right now. I sincerely hope that they find her safe and sound - and soon.
My take on the story based on what I've read in the newspaper and watched on the news is that it was unlikely a random abduction but another Internet predator story. A
MySpace(c) account was created by the girl some time ago, with her parents blessing until her father caught her doing things he didn't approve of, so as punishment, the account was disabled. The daughter's reaction to the "punishment" by creating another account without parental permission or knowledge. This girl is (let's hope she IS) 12 years old. The lie that got her dropped off at the gas station - was apparently an elaborate plan, but honestly what kind of Uncle drops his 12 year old
niece off at a gas station and leaves her there without waiting for the "friend" that was supposed to pick her up? Did she sneak off to meet some creep and it ended badly? Did someone pose as another
pre-teen and lure her into something sinister? Or did she just run away?
The Internet is a scary place and there are a lot of creepy people online. I distinctly remember the first time I got a
web cam (back in college) and launched
CUSeeMe to talk to a friend and within 15 minutes of entering a chat room some middle-aged man had his genitals in front of the camera
masturbating for the whole chat room to see. It was really funny at the time, but I think that there's really more and more weirdos out there and even more places for them to hide online.
It's a tough time to be a kid, but an
unbelievably tough time to be a parent. How do you police your child's Internet usage? How can you police what happens on their friends' computers - there's an element of trusting the other parents - some of whom just don't have the knowledge to limit access to the bad sites, while allowing children to learn about the world through the good sites. I think parents also face a terrible amount of pressure from their children who want to use the Internet to communicate with their peers too. The permissive nature of today's parents, the concept of not wanting to repeat their own parent's mistakes and the desire to avoid raising disappointed children has created this culture where commonsense is rare and a sense of entitlement is epidemic.
Sure makes me glad that I have dogs - Murphy might have a sense of entitlement, but he's not hunting for strangers online to take him for a walk after I gone to bed for the night and he's never had a tantrum in a store. :-)