Mary Jane's Niche

Okay I just received an email from a Mother of  a blogger who frequents this blog. I don’t want to mention this blogger’s name because I don’t want to fire up her mother. I understand her mother’s sentiments but I just want to clear a few things up. And I don’t want to reply to her email too because she’s “keeping a close watch” and my email address has been “blocked to date.” And again – I don’t want to make an enemy of someone’s Mom.

So here’s the email that I’m talking about. I published it here so the mother will know that it’s her email that I’m talking about. And to let her know that she’s the first person who did this to me. Apparently she’s checking out my blog too so this is how I’m going to communicate with her.

Read her email first then read what I have to say in the end:

Mary Jane,

This is ****’s Mom. Dad and I do not find it appropriate for an adult to be corresponding or soliciting a facebook profile from a young child. I realize that she blogged you back in the fall and that she is very precocious for her age. This child is not even a teenager yet. Her exact age you may not have known but you did know that she was a minor judging from your correspondence with her. She knew better than to give out personal information, including her name. Something we have reiterated with her about.

Per your blog and information I have viewed on the internet, you claim to be of Christian faith and in education. Therefore I can expect the correct response from you by NOT continuing to befriend a child from another country of which the parents have not granted permission.

I ask that you do the right thing and no longer respond to my ‘very’ minor child or contact her in any way possible; including making responses on the blog she invited you in on. Children are very impressionable and as a parent, I have cautioned her long before she violated her father’s and my wishes by writing to a stranger…you. Something we are working on but need your assistance by not responding to future inquiries. You have adult friends. Write to them. Not to these children. They have great community teachers, involved parents, and youth groups for them to speak to.

I will pull the plug on these types of activities the day I hear or see another line of communication from someone I have not met and that she does not know. I am sure that you can understand my concern and will honor my request. This child has many friends, and will continue to make friends in everything she does. Her outgoing personality and winning smile will take her far; I just don’t want to see it happen before she is age appropriate and mature enough to handle what the world can dump in her lap.

I will be keeping a close watch. Your email address has been blocked to date.

Not pleased.

Let’s call these frequent visitor of my blog “Young Child” (that’s what her mom called her). I think she’s 12-13 years old. First of all, for the benefit of those who don’t know, Young Child was the one who visited my blog first and left me numerous comments. And being the NICE blogger that I am, I always make it a point to reply to my visitors by replying to the comments that they leave me. I reply through email and/or writing a comment too. It’s like SOP for us bloggers right? We do that because we’re nice and we appreciate people reading our posts and taking the time to leave us comments. So back to the topic. Young Child is a frequent visitor and she sent me emails and even if I’m a busy working girl I see to it that I reply to her emails too. Because Young Child is very friendly. And she was asking for advise. Yes she was asking for advise about friendship and boy problems. I am not a guidance counselor and I sensed that she was “young” so those advises were wholesome and appropriate for someone young. I mean I went through all that before too! But eventually I stopped replying to her emails because I got busy and I had tons of stuff to do.

Now let’s go to this FaceBook business. So Young Child’s email address is on my contacts list (together with everyone else’s). When I signed up for FaceBook, what I did was I used FaceBook’s application which enables me to send invitations to my friends and contacts’s email addresses that are on my email account’s contacts list.  And Young Child got that invitation too. Along with everyone else’s. It’s only an invitation and I am not FORCING anyone to be my friend on FaceBook. Get that? I’m explaining this because I want to clear things up that I am not targeting Young Child alone. I don’t effing care if people will respond to that invitation or not.

Yes I am a Roman Catholic and I was educated at a Catholic school so I am honoring your request of not corresponding with your daughter anymore. In fact I haven’t emailed her or visited her blog in a long time. But she on the other hand has been sending/forwarding me emails almost every day. Just ask her. And as far as I remember I haven’t replied to those emails at all.

And I don’t really understand what you mean when you wrote that I “shouldn’t continue to befriend a child from another country whose parents have not granted permission.” You mean I have to get permission from every blogger’s parents to befriend their son or daughter now? Is that how it works there? I thought your country is a free country. Or is it just within your family? Whatever I don’t want to generalize.  And why use the words “from another country?” Do you have anything against people from other countries? Do you have anything against Filipinos? Why did you say that? But be assured that I AM NOT CORRESPONDING WITH YOUR DAUGHTER ANYMORE.

Yes I know I am a stranger blah blah. Your daughter is a stranger to me too you know. Yet I wasted my time replying to her emails. And why does she spend too much time online anyway. Doesn’t she have people to talk to that she makes it up by trying to make friends with bloggers like me? Think about that for a minute.

I didn’t mean any harm to your daughter. I am a good person who enjoys blogging and making friends online. And in case you don’t know I am not the only person who does. Just check out other people’s blogs. I know you are parents and you’re just protecting your child. I understand that. But do you really have to be rude to me? I think you have read of too many suicides, cyber bullying or those kinds of stuff that bad people do online. But I am not one of those “bad people.” I am not a bad person. I just wanna clear that up.

I don’t even know if you and your daughter are really who you say you are. I have a good part of my life and personality written all over this blog and I bet you know lots of things about me already. But I don’t know a thing about you. How would I know that you’re even for real? That you’re not one of my stalkers? How can I be sure that you’re not a bad person? My parents will be concerned if they read about this too. And you will get me in trouble as well. You see, it goes both ways.

I understand everyone have to protect their privacy and security online. That’s why even if you read lots about me here in my blog. You won’t find my exact address here or where I work or anything really personal. I value my privacy. There are lots of sick people out there. And I’m not even sure if you’re not one of them.

So with all that said I hope you understand my side of the story. Your email adress has been blocked too.

What do you have to say about these guys?