c U l8r txtN! ... For now.

Everybody texts. Everybody. Well, not everybody exactly, but enough people that it is a common form of communication. We had not added this feature to our cell phone plan for many, many years, and that had a lot to do with Herman's feelings about texting. He has been adamantly opposed to it, and he has relatively good reasons for feeling this way. When Herman was a bishop he was constantly talking to youth who were dealing with problems that ultimately began because of texting. What sort of problems? People often think of "sexting" (transmitting naked pictures through texts, in case you didn't know) when it comes to problems with youth involving texts, but these were not the problems that he would find. He found problems that were maybe a bit more subtle, but often had even greater harm on the youth. More harm than sending naked pictures over the phone? Yeah. Seems crazy, but it's true. He couldn't even share most of the horror stories with me, but what little I did know was enough to freak me out. And because these problems were taking place quietly on a typed screen instead of openly through a spoken conversation parents were usually clueless about what their children were involved in. So Herman has fought against us getting texting for a long time. 

I hadn't minded being without texting too much. I rarely had any desire to use the feature, so I didn't miss it much. The biggest problem about not having texting is that everyone else in the world thinks that you must have it too, so they text important information out to you constantly. Since there is no bounceback feature letting people know that we don't have texting turned on, they believe that we receive (and ignore) their messages. It was a huge problem while Herman was bishop. Everyone survived though. We could have gone without the feature for awhile. But I have wanted to be more responsive to the youth I teach in seminary this year, and because I knew that so many of them prefer to communicate via text, I thought that it would be valuable for me to have texting abilities so that I could go after them in a way they would receive. So this summer after lots and lots of arm twisting and please, please, please, please, please conversations I was able to convince Herman to let us try it for awhile. And when I say convince I don't actually mean that I pulled him to my way of thinking. It just means that he let us put it on our plan without crying too much about it. 

The Blau family entered the texting universe in July 2012. Quietly. Since we weren't in the habit of texting a lot no one ever really texted us. Laney was still ending up her year of homeschooling, so she was somewhat isolated from the high school crowd. She would get a few texts from some of her friends from EFY every once in awhile, but really none of us used it a lot. Herman actually found texting to be valuable many times in his professional life as he used it to communicate with schools where he was consulting. And even as a family we have found situations where we were super glad to have texting capabilities. I'm not sure if it was enough to justify the ridiculous prices that AT&T charges for their family texting plans, but we did find it marginally valuable.

But then things started to change. Laney entered back into the high school this year and has become super active with a few groups in the school. And these kids text. A lot. ... A LOT. All day long these kids text. Is it important stuff? No. Just stuff. That's not exactly too much of a problem as long as it isn't taking Laney away from important things that she needs to be doing. And Laney has been great. For the most part she doesn't involve herself in the constant text chatting that is taking place. In fact, when I met up with some of her friends they mentioned how frustrating it is that Laney doesn't respond to their texts immediately. That trait of Laney's used to drive me crazy ... when I thought she was just not responding to important texts that friends would send. When I realized that these friends were sending a hundred texts a day I wasn't so put out by her behavior. I was glad that she was a bit more choosy in her responses. I thought that this was okay.

But it wasn't enough.

It turns out that she had a young man who was quite enthralled with her, and he was extremely persistent in trying to convince Laney to go out with him. Extremely persistent. But Laney (and we too) have these rules about dating. The long explanation can be found HERE. The short explanation is ... No steady dating. Group dates only. People with high standards. Chill out about it. See? That's not too complicated. A bit weird compared to the prevailing standards of the day, but they are our standards, and we are sticking by them. These aren't just horrible rules put on Laney by her unfeeling and uncaring parents who are driven to ruin her life in any way we can. These are standards that Laney has chosen to keep on her own. But it is much easier to uphold these standards when you are talking about theoretical situations. When the real world approaches, sometimes you have to fight to maintain those standards. And Laney has had to fight this year. A lot. Bless her heart. She states her standards over and over and over again, but some of her friends are just not HEARING her. Or they are hearing her and just choosing to fight her right back, encouraging her to lower her standards. This following conversation really took place through a text conversation Laney had last week:

Boy (who was trying to convince Laney that she would be a perfect match for another boy in the school after Laney continually turned down offers to date that boy): Surely you don't intend to keep ALL of the commandments?
Laney: Yes. All of them.
And then the conversation continued as the boy tried to strong arm Laney into dating his friend.

Some of my LDS friends might find that conversation very interesting, right? I couldn't believe I found a real life conversation where those exact words would be spoken. But there it is. 

As a side note, young men (and women) out there who are looking to find the love of your life, when you find that special someone someday you will not have to use tricks and maneuvers to get them to love you. You will not have to fight them to lower their standards. When it is right then it will be easy. Well, mostly easy. These sorts of conversations shouldn't be part of the dialogue in forming an attachment.

Well, anyway, back to texting ... so last night Laney was getting text after text after text, and Herman became interested in exactly what conversation was taking place.  And he found a doozy of a convo. Laney's friend was (yet again) trying to convince her to date him. Laney (yet again) was trying to kindly tell him no. The boy (again) was not taking no for an answer. And he was getting more and more upset about her answers. And then, while Herman was holding the phone, this poor boy let loose a profanity filled text expressing his displeasure with her behavior. I say 'poor boy' because I can only assume his horror when the next text he received came from Herman. It was a classic parent moment. Herman just kindly explained that he was now holding Laney's phone, and he would prefer if that young man would refrain from using such language in his conversations with Laney. Amazingly enough, the text conversation stuttered a bit after that. We had to take a screen shot of the whole thing so that we could put it in our book of amazing parenting moments. 

Laney's struggles to fight off the over-testosteroned young men of Waynesville High School is another story for another day, but today it brought up all of Herman's fears about texting. You see, Laney has been struggling to find a way to deal with her friend's advances for a long, long time. We sort of knew what was going on, but we didn't really have a full picture of what was going on ... because it was all taking place in this quiet virtual world. I am convinced as well that many of the things that this young man said to her through texting were not things that he would have said face to face. There is something about typing the words onto a screen that gives you a feeling of anonymity and allows you to open the filter a bit on your inner thoughts. And that is not always a good thing. In fact, it is rarely a good thing. Could bad things happen even without texting? Sure. Youth have been finding ways to skirt the rules of the greater society since the dawn of time. So taking away texting would not take away all the problems of the world. But texting has made it a lot easier to find paths around the rules. Laney has been wonderful. We don't worry about her at all. She keeps the rules better than we do much of the time. So we aren't worried that she is going to turn into this horrible teenage daughter all of the sudden. Instead, the concern is that she is having to fight so many of her battles alone. Truthfully, she could find ways to break our rules, but she doesn't. She really is a good, good girl. But she should not have to feel isolated as she fights to keep those rules. We tried to monitor her texts as best we could, but we still couldn't keep up. Texting was closing her off from us in some ways, and that just wasn't going to fly. And although Laney will probably be just fine, who knows about one of the younger Blaus? Their well-being was more important to us than the convenience of texting. The truth is that texting can become addictive for some people. I had a boy in seminary last year who was constantly texting during my lessons. He's a good boy. He really is. And when I confronted him about it, he was very apologetic. He had no intention of being disruptive. He told me it was just a habit that he could not break. We came up with a plan, and he was able to keep texting out of his life for an hour, at least. But it was something he had to really work on, and it was difficult for him. I think many youth are in that same spot. They spend so much time communicating this way that they can't break the cycle. 

So this morning Herman turned off texting for our family and broke the cycle. It was hard ... well, it wasn't too hard for Herman. But it was hard for me. I have enjoyed the benefits of texting during these past few months. It was invaluable last summer when I planned for a friend to meet Laney and surprise her on our trip to Indiana. I was able to coordinate with him without Laney knowing what was going on. (But then again, doesn't that prove Herman's point about how texting can be used to plan things outside of a parent's knowledge as well?) But I did appreciate it. There have been moments in the past few months where friends have texted me addresses ... much more convenient than trying to write the address down while listening over the phone. And it has been great to coordinate things when we are in the middle of crowds and don't have the ability to have good phone conversations. I think I will keep the conversation on my phone that Laney had with one of her friends after the big Conference announcement about the change in missionary ages because it is capturing their excitement in the moment that changed the trajectory of both of their lives, and that was neat to have recorded.  So neat things can happen with texting. I was a bit irked that actions of a few text-happy high school students today confirmed all of Herman's concerns about texting, thereby keeping us from this convenience for the foreseeable future. But it's okay. Life will go on for all of us. And just to clarify ... there was no knock-down-drag-out fight that took place in the Blau house last night after all this happened. No one got in trouble, and this isn't a form of punishment. Hard to explain. It's just our way of keeping our family protected.

I am surely not writing this to try and convince the world to get rid of their texting plans, or to take texting away from their high school students. Everybody has to make their own decisions. For us this was the answer. We may put it back on sometime in the future. It may be inevitable that we need it for work. Who knows? But even Laney, this morning, was very relieved to have it gone. She is a bit bummed out that it will cut off that form of communication between her and some of her good friends who are not hard core texters, but who do use texting to say hello every once in awhile. But forcing her other friends to use the phone or come by the house in order to communicate will simplify so much of her life. I hope that it does. Life's too short to be stressing out over texts, don't you think?

So for now ... c U l8r txtN!