Grounded

One of my children is grounded from a particular social networking site.  She was so sick and upset about it that she went to bed early.  I am so saddened by all these virtual connections we have now.  It is such an illusion.  I had a long talk with my children about not having Facebook friends that are not real friends because then it serves no purpose.  Facebook friendships are best when they are a supplement to a real life friendship...a quick way to keep contact and set up coffee dates and play dates.  Offer up some encouragement or perhaps even share some bad news.

Instead, I fear the generation of my children uses it for a replacement.  Friendship without all the effort.  No-frills, if you will.  Someone pisses me off?  Unfriend and problem solved.  Since there wasn't much to begin with, there isn't much lost. Click through some one's statuses and make a snap judgement:like or unlike?   Look through my photo album...I am so happy, the pictures prove it.  Look at all my wonderful friends,  oops, are my boobs showing? I totally did not mean to do that, but I am gonna leave that shot because look how good my hair looks. "LIKE" if you think I'm pretty. No one did, all is lost, I have no friends...oh wait, 2 likes-RAWK ON.

 I feel a little sickened by this fake world we are living in. 

We are meant to live and grow in community.  Our maturity relies on working through conflict.  Immaturity does not need to work through conflict.  Immaturity can hold a grudge and choose not to speak to you again.  So, no one ever has to build a bridge and get over it.  No one has to do the hard work of sucking it up and saying 'sorry' even though the other person is the wrong one and you are the injured one...you just want to work it out and move past the problem.  No one ever has to confront someone over something they did that was wrong or hurtful.  No one ever has to just accept and love someone despite a flaw.  There is no spiritual or moral 'high road'.  We all just take the easy road and  serve our narcissistic selves.

I wish we all could get a bit more grounded