Do you know about ask.fm? It’s a social media meteor among tweens and teens, in which friends ask you questions and you answer them as you please, basically. My 13-year-old daughter knows that we insist on being able to monitor her online activities–which we actually don’t do much of, but my wife did read her ask.fm answers to her friends’ questions, and we discovered the most amazing things.
What do you know? My daughter harbors a fondness for her brother that is rarely apparent. She considers my wife the person in her life most easy to talk to (Score!). And, moreover, she speaks and thinks with a lovely sense of humor and self-deprecation. There was one response I was so proud of, I just couldn’t resist sharing:
Question: r u popular
Answer: Well this is a really weird question to ask someone because i myself don’t really think that there are any really stereotypical “popular” kids at [my school] since everyone has a group of friends and there’s not one group that is the best, everyone’s popular to the people they like to hang out with. Also popularity isn’t necessarily the same as kindness or any other important attributes, it has to do with how many people know of you and consequently the nicest and most generous person at a school could not be known to 99% of the people. And lastly, going back to the question, either way I answer there would be a negative response because if i said yes then i’m automatically a conceited b*tch and if I say no then i’m just trying to get attention and make people feel bad for me….. so im not going to answer.
Also I’m sorry for writing so much I’m just really bored and needed something to rant about
Wow.
To paraphrase a bit from Harry Potter (Elena’s bible), when Ron Weasley, similarly astonished, said it to Hermione:
“Who are you, and what have you done with my daughter?”
Eric Messinger is the editor of New York Family. He can be reached at
emessinger@manhattanmedia.com
