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by subpixel 956 days ago
I volunteer in my local public school in the US. The sad fact is that stable family structure, by any definition, is collapsing and that kids are suffering. The percentage of kids in grade school who have an absent, incarcerated, addicted, mentally unhealthy, or generally dysfunctional parent is off the charts.

Parents who are unable to give their kids the tools they need to avoid getting shunted into special education on account of their behavior are in no position to supervise their online activity.

I make a habit of looking up kids parents on FB - it generally tracks that the worse the kids behavior and educational outlook, the greater the parent’s (singular in most cases) social media presence. I’m no longer surprised when I find a mother’s Onlyfans link, FFS.

Where I live a full 1/3 of 1st graders are in a special education track. All the research points to the impact of the home and family on these outcomes.

Tl;dr many parents are incapable of the rational parenting you suggest.

1 comments

> I’m no longer surprised when I find a mother’s Onlyfans link, FFS.

It's far more likely that lower income is the reason for poor parenting than "mom has an onlyfans".

There is no _one_ reason, and I don't present that particular phenomenon as a causal factor but as a symptom of the greater problem - which certainly includes poverty but is even more closely aligned to the opioid epidemic.

All this is in the context of asking parents to provide their children the guidance required to avoid child-inappropriate content.

My point stands: a large and growing contingent of parents lack the stability/ability/support required to even keep their children's behavior within acceptable boundaries. It's a fool's errand to think keeping kids away from bad actors on the internet can be added to their plate.

Are you suggesting that the internet keeping bad actors away is not a fool’s errand? Everything you say is correct but entirely irrelevant.
There's a lot of money to be made in this industry.

There was a local university student in UQAM who made the news a few years ago and she publicly bragged she was earning a million a year.

Not everyone is going to be a top earner like this, but don't be delusional that it's only an option for lowest income individuals.

There was an implication that they didn't fulfill parenting duties in part because their job was onlyfans.

If they were making a lot of money, and not as poor, there is a higher chance their parenting duties were fulfilled.

I misinterpreted parent's post underlying message then, fault on me.

There's certainly a strong link about kids doing bad in school and the housing quality and home atmosphere.