Ive been resisting giving my two cents on this (I dont have kids but taught 13-18 year olds for 7 years) but after reading that your grand-daughter has no financial resources of her own, I have to say I feel that you would be foolish to give her any of your $$$ to make this visit happen…
I just dont see any true upside to her taking this trip, while there is a very real (even if small) possibility she could find herself in serious trouble, away from any help or support—Even mature, responsible, self reliant people have been conned over the net; a broke 17 year (of either gender) old dosent need to be flying hundreds of miles away to stay with strangers to have a good time on summer vacation.
BTK did not use (or need) the internet to find his victims. In fact celebtrity murderers John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer both targeted young men as their victims for rape/murder/cannibalism. So, actually you are completely wrong.
I traveled internationally on my own when I was 16. I betook myself to London, and no one met me at the airport - I had to find a bus, and go to Oxford where I was staying with some friends of my parents for a couple days. Then again, I was raised in NYC and was quite streetwise and canny for my age (I had been riding the NYC subways on my own since age 12, for example). It’s not inherently dangerous for a girl to travel alone at 12 or 16 or 24. It depends on the person really.
I do not understand why people are so reluctant to assert themselves over their children. I retain veto power over my childrens’ decisions until they are over 18 and out of my house.
If this girl is so desperate to meet this guy, she can wait until she is 18 and do so on her own money. Or she can wait two weeks and have this guy come and meet her on her own, and her parent’s own, turf.
IANAL but I understand in many states, 17 is the age of consent.
I return to a previous point: in a few weeks, when she’s 18 for sure, the terms “letting,” “child” and “allow” and maybe some of the others in the post cited are irrelevant. It would be like saying, “I, lobotomyboy63, am letting Diogenes meet someone he found on the internet. I will allow Diogenes to do that.” Um, you’re an adult, and even if you were my adult child I couldn’t stop you.
If, on the other hand, you mean you wouldn’t let her drive YOUR car, that’s different. As I posted before, respecting someone’s wishes isn’t the same as bankrolling or otherwise assisting them. And assistance may include letting the child continue to live with you—say they start having wild parties, trashing the place, and incurring the wrath of the local PD.
I don’t have kids. I wouldn’t be thrilled for her to go by any stretch of the imagination but see above. But WRT another dangerous decision, if I had an 18 y/o child who told me, “I’m going to join the army,” I’d be upset also. No disrespect to the military, just “My child could get killed.” I could beg and plead and whatever but I would no longer be the final arbiter.
There are plenty of persuasive techniques. E.g. I’ve heard of parents saying, “So, you graduated, my little 18 year-old. You have two choices. 1) Go to college, or 2) Get a job and start paying rent.” Maybe add #3, the armed services. “Take the summer off and work on your tan” was never an option for me IF I wanted to continue living there.
Then you don’t have any business commenting on how to parent them.
ETA what the fuck does the age of consent have to do with anything? That’s not the same as the age of adulthood. Minor children do not have right to leave their parents’ home without permission until they are 18. The age of consent has fuck all to do with it.
I am 32 and female. A couple of weeks ago I met a (female) friend whom I had never met before in RL, had only spoken to on the Internet (mostly LJ), and with whom I had no mutual RL friends (though a couple of LJ friends). My parents went crazy. “How do you know she’s not a creepy 50-year-old guy?” they said. I knew because I’ve been reading her LJ for several years, we met in a group dedicated to a mutual favorite author, and she is part of a large network of people (many of whom I had seen in other contexts on the Interweb). It would make no sense for a 50-year-old guy to pretend to be this person.
I also remember being 17, In Love, and OMG HOW DARE YOU KEEP ME FROM THE LOVE OF MY LIFE FOR TWO WHOLE WEEKS MY LIFE IS OVER etc.
So I have a lot of sympathy for your granddaughter’s point of view, and I suspect it’s not too likely that the boy is a super-creepy predator. That being said, I don’t like the situation. For example, I have a severe issue with him (or his mom, whatever) buying her a ticket. This already puts her in his debt, and he can with some justification play the card “But I spent so much money to get you here!” Also, I feel like it presupposes a level of intimacy that does not exist, and in addition gives the lie to her being independent and mature enough on her own to do this. I would be inclined to say, “If you buy your own ticket with your own money (by working, selling trinkets on eBay, or whatever), and demonstrate to me that you have a plan to get out if the guy turns out to be a creep, then sure, go for it.”
Oh, do you self-censor that way? Like if someone is talking about the behavior of police, you say, “Um, I am not a policeman so I don’t have any business commenting,” or if someone is talking about the POTUS, you say, “Wait, I’m not POTUS, so I have no business commenting,” and so on?
Yeah, I agree. It would be one thing if she had her own ticket and went and stayed somewhere and then arranged to meet him. But deciding to go to his house right away seems like a bad idea.
I, too, traveled in Europe by myself as a teen. But I had to demonstrate some serious responsibility chops to do that. And I’d like to think that even back then I would have realized traveling for a week to stay with a guy I had talked to on the phone a bunch of times was not a good idea. One of those “not even worth asking the 'rents” type of thing.
I’m not so much concerned that the guy won’t turn out to be a teenage boy, although of course that’s a possibility, but even if he is, this is just not a good idea.
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that nonrefundable tickets can generally be applied to future trips with payment of a fee. If he comes out to visit and is non-skeevy and still interesting when she turns 18 and has her own money, she can use it to visit him then.
There are those 18 year olds who are essentially running their own show (I was one of them) and there are those 22 year old college grads whose parents are accompanying them to job interviews and handling their employee benefits. This girl does not seem ready for the deep end of the pool.
And where is he staying on his planned 2-week visit? Did her parents agree to host him for that long? You know what they say about fish and houseguests after 3 days.
An irrelevant distinction. If she does it when she’s 18 (and pays for it herself), then nobody can stop her, but that won’t make it any less stupid and risky a decision. as long as the parents can stop her, then they have an obligation to stop her as long as they legally can.
Her maturity level has no bearing on anything anyway. The issue, as I said, is not that she would be doing something on her own, but that she has no idea what’s going to be waiting for her. It is not a controlled or predictable situation. As I also said, I think flying off alone to meet strangers from the internet shows poor judgement even for adults.
She doesn’t have to pay for it herself as he bought her a ticket. There are no barriers the parents can put up to force her to stay that won’t horribly harm the relationship between themselves and the daughter.
They could skip straight to the nuclear option and say “If you get on that plane, don’t come back”, but from the tone of the OP, that doesn’t sound like an option. The odds are, this kid is not a molester in disguise and he’s not going to spirit her away to the sex boat of a fat Arabian Sheik who will gleefully rape her virginity away.
In reality, he’s probably a giant nerd that won’t know what to do with a girl once he’s met her in person. The parents (and John Carter) should be looking at ways to ensure the trip is safe and the daughter has the ability to easily come home in case he’s a weirdo instead of resorting to out and out denial.
They don’t have to let her out of the house. She is a minor child. She has no legal right to go without their permission. If she tries to go anyway, they can report her as a runaway.
And telling a kid no is not going to damage a previously healthy parent-child relationship.
What makes you so sure there is any kid at the other end at all? That’s the question. Do you always just assume that everybody on the internet is exactly who they say they are?
She is a minor child for, at best, one more month. If there’s not a damn thing they can do about it then, making sure it’s done right now is the best course of action.
For the most part, yes. But in this particular case, the daughter has spoken to the boy multiple times over the phone for hours at a time and the mothers of both teens have spoken.
After a while, thinking “He could still be a virginity-stealing sparkly vampire so no!” is pure paranoia.
And again, I’ve known three couples who have done the “met online” thing. None of them involved a psycho killer (or even a rapist) and all are still together and happy.
Nothing=zero. So my experience being raised (by parents) when I was a child is entirely irrelevant then. Talking to people who have children (like my sibs, from whom I have 25+ nieces and nephews, for instance), that doesn’t mean anything. The numerous psychology classes I’ve taken, nothing. I could go on but I guess in your eyes I should count it a miracle that I recognize a child when I see one.
So you have no opinions about the POTUS. Great.
You’re free to ignore what I say about parenting. If I were so totally full of shit about it, I would have been flamed by all the other posters.
The POTUS is my employee. That qualifies me to have an opinion on what he’s doing for ME.
And no, neither having been raised by parents or having nephews and nieces, or taking psychology classes prepares you or gives you any insight into being a parent. I had all of the above, plus I worked with children for a living. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what it would be like to be a parent. Turns out I didn’t know shit.
As soon as I saw DtC had replied to this thread, I just knew the type of stance he’d already have taken on it (the “no, not on your life, the guy is probably a rapist, everyone on the net you don’t know is probably a rapist” type of stance).
As for the OP, I agree with lots people have already said, mostly Kyla, Pepperlandgirl, and Manda JO.
As a guy who has been in a number of relationships that started on the internet (so, if you will, the other POV as set in this thread), not all guys are out to get anything or have ulterior motives…but it’s always best to err on the side of caution. I agree it’s good to be wary a bit, but to go so far as to forbid her isn’t something I’d do. I don’t have kids, though.
No, the best course of action is to protect her as long as they legally can, and hopefully explain to her why it’s such a stupid idea.
She’s spoken to a voice on a phone. She has no idea who it really belongs to. It’s probably some obese, sweaty pervert in his 50’s. At least, that is the assumption the parents have to make.
Do you want to see more stories of girls who HAVE been killed by internet predators? I’m not sure why you think that being able to cite stories about people who have safely met other internet strangers is supposed to be compelling. So what? Is that supposed to prove there’s never any danger then?
