Stay Away From Her, You Creepy Weirdo

I'm not ready to give the world access to my daughter.

Chaloner Woods / Getty Images

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, the phone situation has come back to haunt me.

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Stay Away From Her, You Creepy Weirdo

People were enraged at conservative commentator Megan Basham this week, which I find to be completely insane. I might be biased because I respect Megan and enjoy following her work. Still, the hate she got after sharing a story about her daughter should rub any rational person the wrong way.

For a little context, Megan noticed a late-night text on her 16-year-old daughter’s phone from a friend asking a quick question about dance class. Since her daughter was already asleep (and her family keeps electronics in the parents’ room overnight), Megan replied briefly as if she were her daughter. The problem was that she used perfect grammar, capitalization, and punctuation.

The next night, Megan saw her daughter giggling while on her phone. It turned out the friend’s mother had done the exact same thing as Megan. She was the one who asked the question, posing as her daughter. Both mothers wanted to avoid having to explain who the original texter was, so they both pretended to be their teenage daughters while using flawless formatting.

Neither girl wanted her friend to think she was the one suddenly using proper grammar, so each quickly confessed that it was actually their mom texting. As a mother of a daughter who texts her friends on my phone, I found this hilarious and all too familiar. I have found myself in similar situations and was also caught because I used capital letters and punctuation.

It was an innocent story about generational divides in communication, and showing how to properly protect your children from technology while they are still young. However, the internet has a way of showing the worst in humanity, like Jim Drumheller, who said: “Your 16 y/o daughter is not a child anymore. Disrespecting her privacy is wrong, not to mention creepy.”

He goes on to say that Megan keeping her daughter’s phone in their room at night somehow means she doesn’t trust her daughter, and he suggested she ask her daughter whether she considers herself a child.

It’s probably worth noting that Jim has pride and trans flags in his bio. In this climate, there seems to be an issue with predators wearing these emblems as a mask in order to get close to children. That’s not to say Jim is hoping to do that. However, if he had suggested those things to me, I would have demanded that we check his hard drive.

I’m becoming increasingly aware that I cannot put off giving my high schooler a phone forever, but making that leap feels overwhelming. Especially considering the fact that giving her a phone means weirdos like Jim could have access to her.

Right now, she is (somewhat) content using my phone to communicate. However, we are getting to the point where she will be driving or at events when we are not with her. It would feel safer to give her a phone for these occasions than to have her rely on friends.

Part of my hesitation is definitely the reality that there are bad people in the world. If you’ve ever watched the Shawn Ryan podcast with guests who talk about online predators, it’s enough to make you never want to give your children a phone, computer, or tablet.