“… And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws till Max said ‘BE STILL!’ and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all and made him king of all wild things. ‘And now, cried Max, ‘let the wild rumpus start!’ …”
[From the children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak]
Are we raising a generation of “the most wild things of all?” Or is it even too much to say anymore that children are “raised” – when far too many parents abdicate their responsibilities to nurture, guide, discipline and protect – and instead let the culture do the child-rearing.
You’ve probably heard of the horrific case from the community of Waukesha, Wisconsin where two 12-year-old girls plotted for months to kill their friend (also a 12-year-old girl) – and very nearly succeeded after luring her to the woods under the pretense of playing hide-and-go-seek, holding her down on the ground, and stabbing her 19 times, leaving her for dead.
The girls reportedly attempted to kill their friend to pay homage to “Slender Man,” a face-less online character on a horror website “designed to unnerve and shock the reader.”
Waukesha police Chief Russell Jack stated, "Both suspects had a fascination in a fictitious character that often posted to a website that is a collection of small stories about death and horror."
According to numerous news reports, “Slender Man” demands that those who want to follow him must first kill a friend.
These would-be killers are not monsters “who gnash their terrible teeth and roar their terrible roars.” They are not even anti-social young men committing horrific crimes, of whom we’ve sadly grown far too accustomed – Columbine, Sandy Hook, Santa Barbara.
They are girls. Twelve-year-olds girls.
As John Kass, writing for the Chicago Tribune, asks: What kind of culture produced those two 12-year-old Wisconsin girls charged with stabbing a classmate 19 times?
Our culture.
… It is a culture that takes fantasy symbols of evil — the vampire, the witch — and transforms them into heroes of great virtue. It is a culture where dark magic is celebrated, but religion is considered bothersome. We reap what we sow. …
All living things take on the characteristics of their environment. Plants soak up nutrients or poisons, as do animals. Young humans do, too.
And now other reports are surfacing of additional crimes linked to the “Slender Man” phenomena. As Yahoo News reports: “A man accused of killing two cops and a civilian before committing suicide with his wife in Las Vegas on Sunday often dressed up in costume as Slender Man …
“And a Cincinnati mom told WLWT she thinks her daughter may have been inspired by Slender Man when she attacked her with a knife in their kitchen, wearing a hood and white mask.”
With calls for the “Slender Man” website to be taken down, the host site defended its right to pollute hearts and minds, stating: “This (site) does not endorse or advocate for the killing, worship, and otherwise replication of rituals of fictional works. There is a line … between fiction and reality, and it is up to you to realize where the line is.”
The trouble is that children and young people, especially, often can’t tell where that line is. As Waukesha police chief Russell Jack warned, this attack should be a “wake up call for all parents.”
He reminded parents of what we know, yet too often ignore – that while the web is full of information and wonderful sites, it “can also be full of dark and wicked things. Parents are strongly encouraged to restrict and monitor their children’s Internet usage.”
I believe many parents know what they should do. They just don’t do what they should. Monitor and limit your children’s internet access? Keep televisions and computer in an open living area and out of bedrooms? Place a filter on all family computers and smart phones? Perhaps parents think these actions are too much bother. Or they think their kids won’t become involved in sites such as “Slender Man” and certainly would never act out such a gruesome crime.
However, Dr. Albert Mohler warns, … as we very well know, this is not limited to the case of two 12-year-old girls in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The reality is that many parents are simply abdicating their responsibility to parent. That is perhaps even a generalized reality, but specifically the concern here is in terms of their children’s digital engagement. Children and teenagers do not deserve unfiltered and unrestricted access to the Internet. As a matter of fact, directly to the contrary, parents must take the responsibility, and exercise and fulfill the responsibility, to protect their children from entering into these very dark neighborhoods on the World Wide Web. And those neighborhoods are countless. They are virtually everywhere. Some about sex; some about violence; some about religious cults; and some a combination of just about all these things put together. …
Now when you look at a story like this, we should be thankful that this kind of thing does not happen more often. But, of course, what we also must think about when we see a story like this is how much damage takes place in the lives of untold young people—children, middle schoolers, high schoolers, teenagers—who thankfully never resort to this kind of horrifying and violent behavior, but nonetheless have their moral systems grotesquely distorted; have their understanding of the distinction between the real and the unreal horribly confused. God gave children to parents precisely so that parents would protect them from this kind of thing, and we should understand that parents bear a nonnegotiable, non-delegatable responsibility and authority to see to it that their children stay out of these very dark places on the Web. …
What can you do to protect your children? At the bottom of every one of our email alerts is this message:
“The Internet has a dark and destructive side. You can find information on how to protect your family from Internet harm at http://www.afo.net
Please do not be the next Internet victim!”
AFO – American Family Online – has what we believe is the best internet protection available for computers and smart phones. We highly recommend their service.
Don’t abdicate your responsibility to protect not only your family, but yourself as well.
Click on http://www.afo.net and do all you can to guard the hearts, minds, and souls of those closest to you.
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