THE OLD WAY
2 squirrels with exposed ribs, a crow in 3 pieces and, I think, a wild cat...
Dear Sue,
Father of a 13 year old girl here. I think like most parents, I was filled with a sense of relief at the news of this social media ban for under 16s. It felt a long time coming and I hoped it would rebalance some of the overwhelming harm the internet has inflicted upon our youth. I thought it would help my daughter and I to reconnect a little bit, but one year later and things are worse than ever…
The first couple of weeks were interesting. It was fascinating to see how useless her phone became - her having no interest in the offline-apps like ‘calculator’. (You’ll no doubt remember we could get hours of fun on an old Casio Scientific - 5 3 1 8 0 0 8 anyone?). She stopped taking selfies when she no longer had a digital ‘wall’ to display them on.
I started to notice her phone just laying about the house - sitting dormant and unlocked on the windowsil or tucked between the cushions on the sofa. I could pick it up, and look through it - something she’d never have tolerated before now. Nothing to see though. No point in taking photographs with no social media to share them on, I suppose!
To my amazement, she started going outside more. I’d get up at 8 on a weekend, and she’d already be out of the house. Phone left behind, no way of contacting her - the one thing that damned mobile is actually for and she doesn’t take it. And don’t get me wrong now Sue, I’m happy to see her out and about. It’s just… I know it’s hypercritical of me, but I’m just not sure about what she’s been up to.
We live near this big country road, see. North, near The Moors. Hindley country. Moved out here just under a year ago - we… well I - wanted a fresh start for us. Hoped it’d fix something, I don’t know. Either way, this road - it’s about half a mile from our house and it’s a hot spot for roadkill. Every day, in this one particular spot, you get at least 15 to 20 splattered fox carcasses, or decapitated birds, or exploded hedghogs. Guts everywhere, someone ought to do something about it.
Well, a few weeks back I caught her going upstairs with a sort of burlap sack in her arms, god knows where she got it, and after a bit of argy-bargey on the stairs about her ‘privacy’ and ‘human rights’, she dropped the bag down the stairs, and 4 stinking dead creatures came atumbling out - intestines and all - all over my new stair rug. 2 squirrels with exposed ribs, a crow in 3 pieces and, I think, a wild cat, although I’m only going by the smell. Its face had had its features buffed away my the tyre of some SUV I imagine.
We rowed, and called one another names. She said she thought this was what ‘I wanted’ - for her to ‘make friends in real life’. When I pushed to know what friends, she got cagey. Said ‘just other girls’. Farm girls, apparently. What they need the carcasses of dead animals for, I don’t know. I’m thinking of driving over there and confronting the parents, but I’ve not properly introduced myself yet and I don’t want to make a bad impression. I don’t want to be the oversensitive City Boy.
I know my letter is probably too long to print, so feel free to edit - or even if you don’t print it at all, I’d still appreciate whatever advice you can give. It’s far harder work than I imagined, raising a 13 year old girl all alone. I just want what’s best for her.
All the best, James.
Hi James, thank you for your letter.
You’re quite right that your correspondence was a tad too long for us to print in the magazine, however I felt I should write you back all the same. The thing is James, this isn’t the first letter I’ve had like yours. In fact, I’ve had an eerily significant influx of similar concerns from parents all across the country since the ban.
I had a letter only yesterday from a worried parent whose 14 year old son had been caught killing almost all the pet cats on his street. He had been strangling, then decapitating them - leaving just the bodies in the road. The heads, they found in a wooden box inside his wardrobe. He too says his new friends asked him to do it. This was in Peckham, so not exclusively a country issue then.
I have alerted the authorities to the startlingly similar contents of these letters I’ve been getting, now estimated in the hundreds, and they’ve advised us here at the magazine to not print anything on the topic. They didn’t say that I can’t reply to my readers, though. That being said, I’m ashamed to say I’m at somewhat of a loss. I do not have children myself, so far be it from me to recommend you let her back on the internet. But I have heard accounts of it working. For some, anyway…
Between you and I, I’m also aware of far more children being now completely disinterested in social media. No matter how hard their parents try and tempt them back, they insist that they’d rather ‘play outside’ with their ‘new friends’ in ‘the old way’. I don’t want to scare you, but some even run away. I hope your daughter is not too far gone, as (in the cases I’ve read of) these children have graduated to subjects larger than animals.
I probably shouldn’t confide this in you James, but do you think we might have made a mistake here somewhere? Sometimes I do. I think we failed them. As I say, I don’t have little ones myself, but what if… what if this ‘addiction’ we thought they had was actually a useful distraction? A distraction from something darker, and much older? Sinister, even?
Of course, it could just be a sincere interest in taxidermy? Lots of people are taken with the hobby these days, and it might well help to patch things up between the 2 of you should you take an interest. Perhaps ask if she’d like to attend a class together, or get her a book on the subject? 13 is a tough year, and she might well just be trying to assert her personhood and autonomy.
13 year olds have been doing that sort of thing for centuries. Things like that never change.
All the best, Sue.
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