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Winter Is Coming ***UPDATED***

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In May of 2015 I’ll celebrate my tenth anniversary of blogging. It’s been an amazing decade in which I’ve seen so many changes in the landscape that is the blogosphere, and a lot of those changes have been in the many different ways we have at our fingertips  with which to share our lives. One of the more recent additions to the social media sphere has been Instagram.  I was a little late adopting the platform, but for the last 18 months I’ve been fairly active out there. I like the ease with which I can post photos and the fact that I can simultaneously post those images to Facebook and Twitter as well.

An integral part of Instagram is the hashtag, which first made it’s casual appearance in social media on Twitter back in 2009.  Since then it’s use has exploded across almost all social media platforms as a means to find things that are trending, find topics of interest, identify brands, or even as a means of adding silly, innocuous comments. Fast forward to the past week; I’ve been using the hashtag, #winteriscoming, and little did I know that by using it with some recent images on Instagram, I’d inspire  a teen from Sioux Falls, SD to leave completely offensive, rude, and insulting comments (which have since been deleted and the user who left them, blocked) about my daughter. My eight year old daughter.

I need to backtrack a little.

Last Friday, Gaby (we’ve been alternatively using her nick-name, Gidget, on social media) and I traveled to Burlington, VT to the Burton Snowboard headquarters for their 2015 Season launch party. You’ve all been reading me long enough to know that Gaby is an avid snowboarder.  She rides Burton and loves the brand.  To say that she can’t wait for the coming season would be an understatement of monumental proportions. I knew that members of the Burton pro snowboarding team would be there but I didn’t tell her.  We mingled, we shopped, we bought some new snowboard boots and almost a new board, and then we wander over to an area of their flagship store, and who does Gaby see standing there? Oh, only three of her four favorite snowboaders in the history of EVER!  Danny Davis, Cilka Sadar, and Jack Mitrani.  I wish I would have captured her face, the moment she saw the three of them standing over by a Christmas display. It was a mixture of sheer joy, excitement, and a little bit of “OMG I don’t know if I’m going to scream or pee my pants, I’M SO EXCITED!” Actually I did initially capture it with one of my DSLRs, but later found out that my flash card wasn’t inserted all the way into my camera.  Oh well, I still got some decent shots with my iPhone.  Seriously, could this kid’s smile be any bigger?

winter is coming

Gaby with Cilka Sadar, Jack Mitrani, Danny Davis, Burton pro snowboard team

Danny, Cilka, and Jack are three of the nicest people I’ve ever met.  I mean that in all sincerity. They took so much time speaking to Gaby, and to me, and were genuinely interested in what she was saying about snowboarding, and they asked her a bunch of questions – most of which are now a blur in my mind because all I could see was the smile on my kid’s face.  They even encouraged me to “Come on, get in a photo!” when Gaby asked them if she could get a photo with them, with her mom too. Guys, I’m tearing up just thinking about it.

So in addition to the sweet photos, Gaby snagged one of Burton’s All Day Long beanies from one of the guys on the team. I’m sure you can imagine that it’s now become one of her most coveted possessions, next to her snowboard. She put it on while we were still at the party, wore it on the three-hour drive back home from Burlington, and pretty much wears it all the time with the exception of school (oh but don’t think she wouldn’t try to wear it all day there, too) and showers. Gaby sort of sees it as a good luck charm of sorts, and she’s hoping that if she wears it every day, it might just influence Old Man Winter to wake up from his long slumber just a wee bit early, and give her a little fresh powder to shred. When I say she wears it all the time, I’m being serious.  Here are some photos I’ve posted to Instagram to prove my point.

winter is coming

Gaby sleeps in it . She wore it while eating picking apples! She wears it while kicking back at home reading. And she wears it when I just want to try and get a good photo of her.

You get the picture . . . she loves that beanie and she wears it all the time. In turn, I share a photo of her in the beanie, each day on Instagram (I think we’re on day 8 of “Beanie Watch”).  I think it’s cute.  I’m sure other people don’t share my enthusiasm for the photos, and that’s OK. When I post the images I usually tag them with the hashtag, #winteriscoming. In the snowboarding community this is pretty much par for the course, and you’ll see it on images that pro snowboarders, gear and apparel companies, and everyday shredders post. It’s no different here in our house. Not a day goes by that Gaby doesn’t check the weather, just to make sure it’s really starting to move into more autumn-like weather, because that means winter is literally around the corner. I really can’t understate the enthusiasm this kid has for winter and all that brings with it, especially shredding!

A few days ago I posted the following image of Gaby in her beanie as she was getting ready to go deliver some baskets of apples to friends; apples that we picked from a recent trip to a local orchard. I tagged the image with the aforementioned #winteriscoming (as well as several other tags) hashtag.

winter is coming

I’ve never once received a negative comment about anything I’ve posted to Instagram. I try to keep a pretty positive feed, leave positive comments for others, and generally I have a great time out there, but then I woke up to the following comments on that image, this morning:

winter is coming

Let me just stop for a moment to say that yes, I’ve gotten my fair share of nasty comments via this blog. A few have filtered through to Facebook and there’s chatter elsewhere that isn’t always the most flattering. Some of it might even be well-deserved.  The thing is, as bloggers, we’ve come to expect this in the blogosphere. Whether it’s haters being haters, or just personality issues, it’s something we’ve all come to accept, like it not. When it comes to our kids though? It’s not par for the course and it’s not even remotely acceptable, in any form, to trash someone’s child. To take something as innocent as a running meme with a child involving a sport they love and the fact that they’re looking forward to winter and then to use the kind of language this high school junior did about an eight year old child?  It’s not only obnoxious, but it’s repugnant and shows a complete lack of class.

I know others will counter with, “Oh well, you put it out there . . .”  Let me just stop you right there.

This is a little girl we’re talking about.

In the first place, there is absolutely nothing untoward about the images I’ve posted of my daughter, in regards to winter, that would lead a person of average  intelligence to infer that my child is in any way, shape or form a halfwit, dolt, dunce or cretin, due to the fact that she loves her Burton beanie and is stoked for winter to get here. If you want to get technical about it, winter is in fact coming. Short of a disaster of truly cosmic proportions, nothing is going to stop that from happening. So, whether it’s 100 days, or 10 days, it’s coming. Well, unless you live in Southern California. In that case, you have my sympathies.

Now that we’ve established the fact that this Sioux Falls, SD high school junior perhaps has some reading comprehension problems, and outside of the fact that he has zero respect for anyone, let’s address the obvious.  His grammar.

In a letter to his high school principal (keep your pants on, I’m getting to the whole, “OMG how did you find this total stranger who posted such an offensive comment about your child?!?) I addressed the glaring issue of his grammar:

Mr. Principal, if you’re asking yourself why a random stranger would reach out to you, the Principal of Mr. Instagram User’s school, in order to air her complaints about a foul, nasty, derogatory comment left behind on her Instgram account by one your students, it’s really quite simple.  You’ll notice that Mr. Instagram User’s grammar and spelling leave quite a bit to be desired, especially when it comes to not knowing the proper usage of “your” vs. “you’re.”  Maybe a review of the fact that “your” would have been the correct possessive adjective to use rather than “you’re” which we all know is a contraction of “you are” would be in order.  Also of note is the fact that while Gidget is in fact my child, his punctuation of the word “kids” is incorrect.  Perhaps a little remedial instruction is in order? I find not only his crassness truly inexcusable (mostly due to the reality that it was aimed at an eight year old child), but the deficit in his intellectual capacity as exhibited by his total lack of any sort of mature vocabulary,  is an atrocious example of the state of public education in our country.

 More to the point Mr. Principal, while I find Mr. Instagram User’s use of social media in order to do what amounts to bullying an eight year old little girl, unacceptable on all grounds, in light of the fact that he represents Your High School as one of your more gifted athletes, I would assume you’d find his comments not accurately reflective of the student body as a whole at Your High School.

I find it ironic, not only in the fact that Mr. Instagram User called my kid a “fucking idiot” when his own failure to grasp common grammar leads one to assume he is in fact the idiot, but when I looked up his school online, I found that they have a code of honor of sorts. In it they list seven characteristics of respect that are expected from students at his school:

“Respect Self, Others and Property

Expect the Best From Yourself and Others

Set High Expectations

Prepare for Learning

Exhibit a Positive Attitude

Communicate Respectively and Effectively

Take Pride in Your School”

Look back up at the comment he left about my daughter and then ask yourself, are those the comments of someone exercising traits that are commonly associated with respect?

As to how I found out who this kid was? Oh, such a simple thing really. When your Instagram user ID contains your entire name, and your stream identifies the school you attend, and then a simple Google search brings back a ton of local news stories which include some of the same photos in your Instagram feed,  all due to the fact that you’re one of your school’s star athletes, it makes connecting the dots almost effortless. If you leave a comment like the ones that were left on the above photo of my daughter, I promise you I’ll not only delete the comments and then block you, if you’re a minor, I’ll take that as a sign that no one taught you any better and I’ll take reasonable measures to make sure the adults in your life understand that your comments are not acceptable under any circumstances. I’m not sure why this kid decided to tag another friend of his, but he did.  This person was also easily identifiable despite having a private Instagram account. I ask you, how smart is it to have a totally private account, yet include the name of your high school in your publicly identifiable information?

Do yourselves a favor kiddies . . . if you’re going to post nasty, mean comments on total strangers Instagram accounts, make sure your own is locked down so well that not even Anonymous could find you.

Here’s the deal, as parents, we’re getting sick of punks like you thinking that because you’re behind a screen, you can get away with anything, including picking on a random eight year old that you’ve never met and who would be crushed had she seen your ugly comments. If you’re obtuse enough to leave a trail of breadcrumbs that identifies you, in your social media postings and profiles, don’t be shocked when angry parents track down the adults in your life and show them just what kind of person you are, online. You tend to forget that when you identify things like your school and the fact that you are one of their more prolific athletes, that you automatically become representative of that educational institution. How thrilled do you think your parents, or your teachers and other faculty at your school are going to be when they find out that you think it’s fun to call an eight year old a “fucking idiot”?

If you want to take pot-shots at me, and call me names, go for it. My kid?  She’s off limits. Any child out here should be off limits!

Over the years, especially the last few, I’ve seen some truly heinous remarks about the children of bloggers.  Everything from how ugly a child is, to how fat (or how unnaturally thin), how unusual looking, how dumb . . . you name it, there seems to be no boundaries when it comes to the kind of awful remarks someone will make about a child.  These are comments that are easily and publicly available. My own daughter is capable of using the Internet to search for people, which she does regularly (our search histories are filled with almost nothing but snowboarders and authors of books she likes to read) with constant adult supervision. So it’s not outside the realm of possibility for children of other more popular bloggers to start searching for their parents and there they’ll find all sorts of ugliness, not only about their parents, but about themselves. When it comes to what I post on the internet, we communicate, as a family about mom’s presence on the internet and what Gaby is and is not OK with mom posting. If she doesn’t want me to share something, it doesn’t get shared. As a parent, I’m going to revel in everything that makes my child happy. Some of those things I’ll share. What right does anyone have to call her a name based on what I’ve shared?

Let me be very clear so that there’s no room for misconstruing what I’m saying; my kid is off limits when it comes to vulgar, objectionable comments.

Childhood, at times can be challenging. As a parent, it’s my job to help my daughter navigate the pitfalls and potholes that she’s going to encounter along the way, as well as help her celebrate the milestones and achievements that come with growing up. At Gaby’s age, it’s also my job to be her advocate and speak up for her when others would seek to tear her down or hurt her, regardless of whether those people do so to her face, or from behind a screen.

One more thing . . .

Winter is coming. Deal with it.

 **********

10 days after I published this I received a call from the principle of the high school where the kid who made the comments on Instagram, attends. We spoke for a while about what happened, and then he let me know that I would be receiving a phone call from the student.  Two days later I got that phone call. A very nervous young man apologized profusely over and over and claimed that he didn’t really mean any harm and that it was just a game he was playing. I underscored that this was all public and not only could my daughter some day see the comments, had I not deleted them, but others, potential college screeners, and future employers could come across his comments as well, as he used his whole name as his user ID. I was very frank in telling him that were I someone in a position of authority at a college or university, I’d think twice about admitting him, and that I had, in a former career, used information including hate speech found on social media to exclude a potential candidate from a job. The response from the young man was, “Woahhhhh, I never even thought about that.” After several more apologies I wished him the best for his future, and ended the call. I want to believe that he was being genuine and will in fact think twice before he considers acting like a jackass again on social media. 

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