People who want the government to legislate their morality are just plain crazy. Perhaps the sterilization comment was too strong, but there are too many people who have children because they need to fill their mini-van or its expected of them...kind of like college, marriage, kids is just the normal order of things. Let me say it less bluntly: If you want the government to make all your decisions and you can't take the time out to parent (that's a verb) then perhaps parenthood isn't for you. Nobody will fault you for not wanting to add to the growing population of small minded people.
And another thing, do NOT assume single-parent homes are bad ones. Plenty of 2 parent homes, with stay-at-home mothers produce porn-loving, or sociopathic, or drug addicted dysfunctional adults.
As a parent and a teacher I found many of your comments valid, I certainly don't believe children should be exposed to porn. HOWEVER, I went to BearShare to see what one would have to do in order to use the program. I have taught 10 year olds for quite a while, and while there are some that are highly computer savvy, I believe a relatively small number would be able to download and install a program such as this on their own. Moreover, if they did, those who can are able to, typically at 10, are not interested in nor aware of porn. For those who are, I ask, how did they learn of it? And who is watching them? Their television babysitter or their computer babysitter, or their video game babysitter? Good parenting is enough to prevent children's exposure to porn. Period. You CAN monitor what your chldren do 24 hours a day and you should, because its a big, bad world out there and if you don't someone else will.
Now, as for exposure of porn to teens, who I think have the ability and desire to seek out such stuff online, again I think that comes to a values/moral issue and is left to parents. Hypothetically, if my teenager is downloading and generally spending great amounts of time online, perhaps I should speak to him/her about what's out there and what my beliefs are about it, and what the house rules are about it. If the rules that are set forth in my home are broken, there are consequences.
That screenshot of a gov't search for porn showed me that our tax dollars are once again paying for some Washington slug to get off.
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People who want the government to legislate their morality are just plain crazy. Perhaps the sterilization comment was too strong, but there are too many people who have children because they need to fill their mini-van or its expected of them...kind of like college, marriage, kids is just the normal order of things. Let me say it less bluntly: If you want the government to make all your decisions and you can't take the time out to parent (that's a verb) then perhaps parenthood isn't for you. Nobody will fault you for not wanting to add to the growing population of small minded people. And another thing, do NOT assume single-parent homes are bad ones. Plenty of 2 parent homes, with stay-at-home mothers produce porn-loving, or sociopathic, or drug addicted dysfunctional adults.
As a parent and a teacher I found many of your comments valid, I certainly don't believe children should be exposed to porn. HOWEVER, I went to BearShare to see what one would have to do in order to use the program. I have taught 10 year olds for quite a while, and while there are some that are highly computer savvy, I believe a relatively small number would be able to download and install a program such as this on their own. Moreover, if they did, those who can are able to, typically at 10, are not interested in nor aware of porn. For those who are, I ask, how did they learn of it? And who is watching them? Their television babysitter or their computer babysitter, or their video game babysitter? Good parenting is enough to prevent children's exposure to porn. Period. You CAN monitor what your chldren do 24 hours a day and you should, because its a big, bad world out there and if you don't someone else will. Now, as for exposure of porn to teens, who I think have the ability and desire to seek out such stuff online, again I think that comes to a values/moral issue and is left to parents. Hypothetically, if my teenager is downloading and generally spending great amounts of time online, perhaps I should speak to him/her about what's out there and what my beliefs are about it, and what the house rules are about it. If the rules that are set forth in my home are broken, there are consequences. That screenshot of a gov't search for porn showed me that our tax dollars are once again paying for some Washington slug to get off.