This was a tough read. On one end I want to hold this parent accountable...and he should be held accountable for any negligence on his part. As noted, Gabb does indicate that GroupMe facilitates communication with strangers. Because, well, it’s a messaging app like any other.
I don’t want to digress too far, but you know what I had when I was young and wanted to talk about books? Libraries. That’s beside the point but somewhere is a point to be made and I don’t want to pry into this man’s personal life beyond what he’s already shared about this ugly experience. But I imagine that few things can deter a predator like a swarm of librarians.
“I could almost hear the crack. Could almost see that OLED display splintering into a thousand pieces. The little Joy-Cons skittering across the floor. My son's face. My wife's face. The stunned silence.”
He should've broken the Switch. Anyone who’s ever destroyed electronics knows how cathartic it is. Men are only afforded so many opportunities to display healthy acts of aggression in front of their wives and children. Of course never towards them.
“What I did was announce, in a voice louder than necessary, that nobody was to ask me about anything Minecraft-related on the Nintendo Switch for a minimum of two weeks.”
I suppose that’ll do.
“Here's what I want: an off switch. A single setting that says "this child cannot go online, communicate with strangers, spend money, or download anything without my explicit permission." Instead I get a maze, complex enough that when something goes wrong, I'm at fault for a tooltip I didn't hover over, a blog post I didn't read, a submenu I didn't find. Maybe that's by design. Maybe it's neglect. I don't know.
What I know is this. My son just wants to play video games and talk to his friends. I just want to keep him safe. Somewhere between those two things, I'm supposed to become an expert in the convoluted parental control schemes of Gabb, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Xbox, while a stranger's Christmas morning texts sit in my son's phone history.”
Again. It’s easy for me to blame this dude because I live in a world where this sort of scenario is wholly unlikely and to a great degree his experience explains why that is the case for me. But this story was too well put together. I never thought that a curl one liner and a bash script could emote a form of anger that I empathize with so readily.
I hope this inspires him to question the extent to which he’s relegated parental controls in other areas, if it’s at all the case elsewhere. Either destroy them or set firmer boundaries and raise your expectations for yourself and whatever third parties he sees fit to be held responsible for his household and their affairs. It may take another 12 years or so...but your sons should thank you if you’re successful.