WTH?! IM LOL @ MY DAP: Teens & Technology

What the hell?! I'm laughing out loud at my dumb ass parents.

With technology wrapped securely in peer pressure, cyber-sex, communicating and conniving is extremely easy for teenagers today. As parents, we can guide and teach our children to do right from wrong, but it's challenging when you're up against technology to raise teenagers these days. We can shelter and mold, but eventually, your teens will go "outside." And when they do, let' hope the safety shields we've erected around them don't break.

During my generation as a teen, our parents thought it was hard to raise us. There were no cell phones, iPhones, iPods or any of the other techology that's available to teenages today. But somehow, my parents always managed to find out what I had going on.

It was that damn village! You know the village: "the one that it takes to raise one child." Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Taylor. Yes. That one. No matter where I went, by the time I got home, my mom and dad knew of my every move. Prying eyes made it extremely difficult to even think about kissing, let alone having sex.

I begin to take notice of the realness of technology when, on one ocassion, I took my daughter's phone thinking I was punishing her by temporarily cutting off her connection to "her world," but soon enough I realized it didn't matter. There are so many other ways to "stay connected."

You can text on the iTouch and on a Wii. At school, although they claim to install filters and blocks, social networking sites, IM, e-mail and chat technology are accessible because teenagers know how to "back door" their way around the filters. Note: additionally, schools are becoming so Web-based that failing is almost a guarantee without liberal access to most areas on the Web!

Then there's dating by way of technology. (Dating? I call it fucking.) When I was in school, love notes went something like this: "Do you like me?" And at the bottom, the Yes or No check box would glare at you like the sun on ice. Today, MMS, social sites and Web cams makes it too easy to show a guy or a girl what you have to offer before they decide to give away their "cookies."

Monitoring your cell phone bill to keep track of who and what they text is no help. Sites like Text4free and other online phone systems help them out with that! You can turn off the radio and TV, but they can get movies and radio on phones, computers and iPods. And forget about when they go to school and use their friends' phones and pods too!

For now, it's an uphill battle. The best methods I've found so far is to spend as much time with them as you can and expose them to more positive things and culture. We take our teens' phones at night. After school, they go off between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. to make time for homework, family time and chores, then back off and in our room by 11 p.m. for the youngest and Midnight for the oldest.

Lucky charms, meditation and prayers to you parents!

PS-relying on that village is gone. Try to call a parent about their kid these days and the parents will come after you! Beat your kid and the cops come after you! *Sigh*

Until next time...

The Writer's Way Pt. 2

Follow the Rules or Else

I'm having a hard time processing this whole "friends and family writing is free" theme that is trying to rob me of my livlihood.

I'm not sure whether my friends and family think because I'm a professional writer I'm obligated to write for them for free as their "hook up." Or worse, if they just don't respect what I do because I'm not a clock puncher, and don't take my career seriously.

Regardless, if you have a writer friend or family member, here are some etiquette, rules, guidelines and/or procedures that can help you remain respectful of the writing process:

1. Writing is our career. Please do not ask a professional writer to write for free. Writing is our business. Consider: would you go to work and work for free? Probably not, so please don't expect us to. Instead, tell them your budget up front and work out a payment plan.

2. Respect our time. Self-employed people wear many hats: bookkeeper, sales person, collections agency, project manager--on top of having to do the work you're designed to do. So, while it may seem that working from home or having your own office is easy, it's not. So please, hold the sighs and sarcasm when we say, "we can't."

Rule of thumb: An organized writer will have their day planned out and shouldn't have a whole lot of time to do work for other people, and especially for free. (Writers, if you do have loads of free time, something's off. There's always opportunity for business building and marketing.)

3. Be understanding. There's simply not a lot of productivity in social networking media if you're not promoting yourself or your work. So if we don't e-mail, text, chat, Facebook, Tweet or MySpace back immediately, please understand that we're probably checking business e-mails or sending out business-building messages to generate business that will ultimately pay our bills.

There. See? That's not so bad is it? There's only three rules. Follow.

The Writer's Way Pt. 1

Just Say No

Recently, I found my "To Do" list filled with time-consuming writing projects that I was not getting paid to write. Suddenly, the majority of the work I did was for a friend or family member--free! And because I'm a self-subscribed perfectionist, whether I'm writing for free or charging, I tackle all assignments like I'm getting paid.

Writers, you know the drill: you sweat bullets because you find yourself staring at a blank page for hours; you hear time ticking away really loud while the rest of the world is in suspended animation except your clock, and finally you question your ability as a writer when you've suddenly let the deadline sneak upon you which means you'll have to pull an all-nighter, only to realize you had another day.

I'm not sure how I let it get so out of control, but things had become so miserable, I'd started avoiding calls from everyone I know. Instead, I welcomed "Unknown" calls because I struggled with telling people no. I knew that I had to find a solution when a friend insisted I write her blog for her on a weekly basis for free! WTF?!

I was too out done. So here's what I did. I created a few "sound bites" that I've rehearsed and belt out like an automated operator whenever someone asks me to work for free. They go like this:

1. Sure I can do your resume! I only charge $[insert rate] and I can have it to you within two days. You can even pay on my Web site!

2. Of course I'll help with that essay. I usually charge $[insert rate] for essays, but for you, I'll only charge $[insert discounted rate].

I lost quite a bit of my "clientele" after that, but I was no longer stressed. Now I know that when I sit down to write for someone, PayPal will notify me that "You Have Received New Funds!"