The Tooth Fairy, ya cheap ho bag.

                             

Growing up, the loss of a tooth meant waking up the next morning to a dollar (as in one) in the place of where my detached body part lay the night before- no fanfare, no parades, no nothing. When Jasmine lost her first tooth, a few years ago, it was on my weekend and because I have a penis, I was not aware of the evident changes nor was I versed in the latest technology of the Tooth Fairy industry - I had no fairy dust. No one mentioned that in addition to dinero, today’s Tooth Fairy traffics in LSD so her toothless groupies will have conclusive evidence that she’s been there. For this brainchild, somebody’s got a punch to the uterus coming.

Lacking any tangible creativity, I decided that this Tooth Fairy would leave a note of thanks and encouragement instead of sprinkley glittery goodness. So at the 11th hour, I came up with this and put it on top of the water glass where the fairy dust was supposed to have been.

Miss Jasmine,

I am so excited that you have lost your tooth and I have left a special gift for you under your pillow! You did super in the First Grade and I know you are very good at reading and math. I wrote you this note instead of leaving fairy dust, just so I could to tell you what a special girl I think you are. Thank you for the yummy water!

The Tooth Fairy

Don’t forget to brush your teeth every day!

Yummy water?!?!? How gay, obviously my tampon was up too far that day.

So when Jasmine broke her dental hymen this weekend she expected nothing less than poetic brilliance from the Dental Wonder Woman. But for my 7-year old, unfortunately we’ve been in a recession for a while and, well, everyone’s apparently been affected.

I felt sorry for the little princess, when she woke up the next morning to this note:

Wat up dog!

I know dis is like yo first tooth and all, but dis sister just ain’t got nothin fa ya no mo. Da fairy dust dealer done cut me off and I had to hock tha magic wand to buy baby formula. Damn Cupid done got me knocked up and all, and now he say he back with his other baby momma. And if I don’t come up with some money quick dey gonna repo my fairy wings! So, I know this ain’t de way its ‘possed to be but I’m gonna grab dis enamel you got here cause Leroy down at the pawn shop be paying top dolla right now and I finna take a little hit off this piggy bank, cause momma gotta pay dim bills. I’m good for it, yo! You just keep losing dim teeth and I’ll settle up wit you next go round.

Peace, stay in school, don’t do drugs, whatever…

Tooth Fairy

Oh and how bout a little Cristal up in here next time, wurd?

I think I’ll take her out for ice-cream.

Why Do Men Have a Hard Time Handing Things Over To God?

If pride truly cometh before the fall then we need a strong harness and a good helmet.

Note: When I use “God” I’m talking about the God of the Jewish, Christian and Catholic faiths but it can mean whatever higher power you believe in. The principles are all the same so if you have a different authority that you answer to please replace God with that.

As men we’re fixers. It’s in our DNA to try and do things ourselves and in general we aren’t real big on asking for help. Does this story sound familiar?

Think about the last time you picked up something from IKEA. Chances are you immediately laid everything out in front of you, put the directions somewhere behind you and began the assembly process.

Did your wife/girlfriend/partner/child come into the room as you were searching for nut B and screw Z to ask how it was going? Did you respond by muttering something under breath about how the Swedes need a lesson in assembling furniture ‘The American way?”

Did they then pick up the directions from the corner and ask why you weren’t using them? If they did I’m sure you answered, “Directions? I don’t need no stinking directions.”

Once you finally got it assembled did you stare in wonder at the four extra pieces and ask yourself why they put extra pieces in the package? The answer is that they didn’t put anything extra in the box.

We beamed with pride as we showed our family the shiny new entertainment center and flew into a rage when it fell apart the moment the new (and very expensive) flat screen TV crashed to the floor because the shelf collapsed.

The same is true with our lives. We believe that as men we can take care of everything on our own. We make mistakes and then break down what happened like a football coach the day after a spanking on national TV.

The truth is that we can’t take care of everything on our own and we do need help. When I say, “help” I don’t mean that we call our neighbor to help us drop the motor into the car we’re always working on. I mean that we need help from above.

I can tell you that I’ve screwed up in ways I’m ashamed to admit and the reason I’ve screwed up is that I refuse to hand stuff over to God and try to do life on my own. But I can’t do life on my own. No one can. At least not successfully.

Why do we try and get through life on our own? For me it’s that I’m afraid to hand over the reins and let someone else take control. If we don’t like people driving our car why would we want someone driving our life?

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”
Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV)

No matter what your beliefs, the idea that we can’t do things on our own is universal. Once we admit that we need help and turn the leys of our lives to God we will find that we will get from A to B without the mishaps and blunders that happen when we get behind the wheel.

I liken our lives to a limousine ride. We can either drive ourselves through life or we can hop in the back seat and let God use his GPS to maneuver around the trouble spots.

It’s no secret that men don’t like to ask for directions when driving and the same is true with our lives. It seems the bigger the decision the less likely we are to ask for help and that makes no sense.

I recently attended a retreat with my church men’s group and the speaker was a neurosurgeon named Dr. David Levy. Surgeons have a reputation for thinking they hold the fate of the patient in their hands but Dr. Levy knows who is ultimately in charge.

Not only does he pray for guidance before and during the surgery but he also prays with his patients before the surgery. He told us that when he started doing this with his patients he was afraid of what the nurses and other doctors would think and did it only when he was alone with the patients.

After a while people caught on to what he was doing and the nurses began joining him in prayer with his patients.

The point of this story is that if a man in a profession full of people with God complexes can hand over the lives of his patients to God then I should be able to hand my daily life over to God.

More often than not I try to do things on my own and the results are typically not what I was hoping for.

I believe that a big reason for us not handing things over to God is because we’re prideful. History is full of prideful men who didn’t hand things over to God and who suffered greatly because of it.

Remember Adam? He was prideful and thought he could be like God but instead was cast out of the Garden of Eden and ended up screwing it up for the rest of us. We need to remember that our decisions affect more than ourselves. If we’re married and have a family our decisions will impact them and our decisions can sometimes make or break the companies that we own or work for.

What do we do about it? I have to constantly remind myself that I tend to screw things up in a big way and that I have to suck it up and admit to myself that I don’t have the answers and that I can’t do it on my own.

The hardest part for me is admitting to myself that I need help. I have some pretty serious self-esteem issues and hate asking for help with anything because in my messed up mind asking for help is just one more failure and one more reason not to believe in myself.

I walk a fine line between my need to believe in my abilities and my need to believe that I need help from above. Once I find that balance I have no doubt that my life will improve tremendously.

I feel like I’m trapped in my life and that I don’t know who I really am. I’m afraid of screwing up and have too much fear but as I learned from Dr. Levy, vulnerability is the highest form of courage.

As men we have an inherent need to be brave and to be courageous yet we don’t realize that it’s OK to be vulnerable. We don’t want to be seen as cowards or that we’re not in control of our lives. The sooner we realize that we’re not in control and that being vulnerable isn’t the same as being a wimp the sooner we will have the life we want.

I have a message on the bottom of my massive whiteboard. It says, “In a world where you can be anything…BE YOURSELF!” I see these words every day yet I have a hard time heeding them. I feel like I’m trapped in a hole that I can’t get out of and the reason I’m trapped is that I’m afraid to find out who I really am. I’m pretty sure that I will like that person but the fear of that guy being a bigger loser than the person I currently am takes over and I stay in the never ending cycle I’m currently in.

The last thing Dr. Levy reminded me of is that authenticity gives us freedom. The way out of the hole I’m in is in being myself and part of being myself has to be handing the keys of my life over to God. The sooner I put my hands up and say, “Your turn” the sooner I will have the life I want.

That’s my story. What’s yours? What stops you from handing things over to God? If you are one of the people who does hand things over to God how has it changed your life? I want to hear your story.

If you want to learn more about this I highly suggest getting the book Gray Matter: A Neurosurgeon Discovers the Power of Prayer . . . One Patient at a Time by Dr. David Levy. It’s part medical drama and part insight to our spiritual selves. I’m a few chapters in and it’s a great read.

I Will Wait

Sometimes the message is in the song. This time the message is the song.
Music is a big part of my life even if the only thing I play is the stereo. I prefer digital to analog as it’s much easier to tune. The iPhone is my instrument of choice.

I Will Wait by Mumford and Sons is currently in my top three most played and for good reason. It’s catchy, upbeat without being loud and to be perfectly honest I dig the string-heavy sound of the quartet from London.

I’m a very visual person and while on YouTube the other day I decided to check out the video for I Will Wait.

The excitement began when I saw it was filmed at Red Rocks in Colorado, a place I definitely want to see a good band at in person. As the music began I noted how beautiful the setting of the venue is. I encourage you to check it out after you finish.

The peaceful setting mixed with the guitar, banjo, stand up bass and keyboard was downright cool but it was the voice of Marcus Mumford that caught my attention. As he started the second verse I thought I noticed something so I backtracked to the beginning of the song to see if I heard what I thought I heard I did.

It was a conversation between God and a person, kind of a prayer with an immediate reply. The man/woman does the majority of the talking but God does reply. The chorus could go either way.

I like to think that it’s the person saying they will wait for God to do his thing and also that it’s God telling the person that He will wait for him/her. Either way it’s a beautiful story.

God’s part is in italics while the person’s is in bold. The chorus is reader’s choice. When you’re finished I encourage you to watch the video and let me know what you hear.

Well I came home
Like a stone
And I fell heavy into your arms
These days of dust
Which we’ve known
Will blow away with this new sun

But I’ll kneel down wait for now
And I’ll kneel down
Know my ground

And I will wait I will wait for you
And I will wait I will wait for you
So break my step
And relent
Well you forgave and I won’t forget
Know what we’ve seen
And him with less
Now in some way shake the excess
And I will wait I will wait for you
And I will wait I will wait for you
And I will wait I will wait for you
And I will wait I will wait for you
Now I’ll be bold
As well as strong
And use my head alongside my heart
So tame my flesh
And fix my eyes
A tethered mind freed from the lies
But I’ll kneel down
Wait for now
I’ll kneel down
Know my ground
Raise my hands
Paint my spirit gold
And bow my head
Keep my heart slow
Cause I will wait I will wait for you
And I will wait I will wait for you
And I will wait I will wait for you
And I will wait I will wait for you

                                         

If guns cause violence, then spoons are the cause of obesity.

If guns cause violence, then spoons are the cause of obesity., a photo by benjamin_valadez on Flickr.

My kid and the birthday dilemma

I was born, you were born, that clerk at the tag office was born to. It’s a common event shared with the 7 billion or so others on the planet. And with only 365 days in a calendar year, based on the averages, roughly 69 million of them share the same birthday. When one stops to look at it in those terms, what’s the entire ruckus with our birthday really about anyway?



Why do so many act like the day of their birth is carved out only for them and rest of the world should prostrate in worship and gladness that providence saw to it we were graced by their presence? From the beginning, for many, a birthday entails the stoppage of time and space in order to celebrate. Banners are erected, parties thrown, and clowns hired for the purpose of making the “birthday boy/girl” feel as completely and totally special as possible – because God knows we all need to feel special. And as time goes on if mom, dad, or a friend isn’t there to continue the tradition it’s become totally acceptable, and in perfectly bad taste, to throw a birthday party – for ourselves.
 
Maybe this negative sentiment is the result of growing up with my birthday never arriving to fanfare and tickertape parades. I have little memory of any of my birthday parties as a kid and have only found a few pictures evidencing that one ever took place.

Where I was from the world didn’t stop rotating on its axis the morning of every Mar.
8^th And having recently passed my 48th time around the sun I’m glad it never did.

 

Today marks my youngest child, Jasmine’s, 8^th birthday. Achieving the big 8 brings mixed emotions; I can’t believe she’s this old but I often thought she would ever get here. I’ve been a single dad for 80% of her life and there were times, in those early years, when all I longed for was a child mature enough to brush her teeth and wash her own hair. Now aside from me paying the electricity bill and chauffeuring her around she handles most things quite well. At the rate this 8yrs. flew she’ll be moving into her own apartment next week.

You might think we’re planning a blowout to celebrate hitting eight digits with a Taylor Swift theme, caterers, party favors, and a DJ.
But you’d be wrong.

Instead she will wake up to birthday hugs and kisses from her father and a trip to the donut shop for breakfast. Later she’ll likely immerse herself in “Good Luck Charlie” episodes while cleaning her room and making her bed. Since she has the patience of an infant she’s already gotten her birthday presents all of which were necessities and not electronics whose names begin with vowels. We’ll have sandwiches for lunch and she’ll get to blow out candles on cupcakes I got for 50% off at the grocery store. And if we’re lucky and my day is light we might see the pool before afternoon is over.

Later in the day her mom and I will make the switch and they’ll go to Jasmines’s favorite restaurant for dinner. The only traditional birthday-‘ish’ thing she will do is a movie and sleepover with three friends at her mom’s house a few weekends from now — because no upstanding parent would allow their daughter to spend the night with her friend and her single dad.

In the end the sun will set on Jasmine’s 8^th birthday with no fireworks, ponies, limo rides, or mayoral decrees. And the strangest thing in it all – she thinks it’s supposed to be this way.

 

Enjoying coffee one morning I couldn’t help overhearing a twenty something talking about her upcoming birthday plans. She proceeds to correct her friend that this isn’t her birthday but actually her birth-‘month’. She explains how the people in her life are aware of the lofty birthday expectations and parents, family, and friends have seen to it every weekend has been slated with some form of festivities, from dinners, to parties, to birthday get-a-ways. I didn’t know whether to wish her happy one or ask when her daddy issues started.

The world is full of adults whose parents didn’t make them feel special. I get that responsibility as a dad. But we’ve taken this idea of birthdays, especially children’s birthdays, to an obnoxiously obscene level. No longer can they be mere observances with a cake and candles, but instead have been turned into a national holiday and orchestrated affairs that require event planners and a security detail. I’ve witnessed boy’s birthday parties that include custom T-shirts and little girl’s parties that are an afternoon in the spa. Bygone are the days of a simple party at home with a Betty Crocker cake and dad’s amateur attempts at writing in frosting that more resemble Sanskrit than birthday wishes.

As a single father it would be oh so very easy to give into this birthday dilemma and give Jasmine whatever celebration her 8-year-old heart desires. Her parents are seperated doesn’t she deserve special treatment? Birthdays are how ‘DisneyLand Dads’ got their start, right? But by hopping that train takes her and I someone we don’t want to go. seperated or not, the last thing I want my daughter to be is a twenty something who thinks the world should stop every Oct. 19^th, because mommy or daddy made it do so. Ever wondered where kids’ entitlement issues start?

No, Jasmine will wake up to a father who’s thankful and blessed she is in his world and who will recognize the day for what it is – without ever making a big deal of any of it.

The biggest lie parents tell

I couldn’t have told you the first thing about Helen Gurley Brown; in fact I didn’t even know the name. But since her death a few weeks ago, Helen and I have gotten acquainted. There’s much to respect, a poor southern girl who grew up and made it big, married to the same man her entire adult life, and built a media empire almost single handedly.





From what I’ve read she seems like my kind of person, quick witted with a sharp tongue, candid to the point of brazen, I believe Helen would let you know where you stood. An idealist, many critics claim it was her womb that birthed the modern feminist movement. But for all of her accomplishments, what she seems to be most noted for was her unapologetic approach to womanhood and particularly female sexuality.

The architect of numerous one-liners such as, “if you’re not a sex object, you’re in trouble” and “good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere” she advocates in her 1962 book Sex and the Single Girl that the Puritan sexual mores of that time were outdated and women should leverage their erotic talents and grab the very best life has to offer including jobs, promotions, and Mr. Right. And as its editor, Cosmopolitan Magazine began expressing her same views. What was once was written for the June Cleavers of Middle America providing decorating tips and recipes, under her direction, began teaching those same women the best ways please a man…and themselves.

Yet the more articles to appear describing her exploits, the more I wanted to know one crucial detail. Was this woman who touted promiscuity, sexual manipulation, and carnal indulgences – a mom?

 

We expect our children to differentiate between what they aren’t ready for now and what they ought never be ready for.

Many refer to the culture we live in as relativistic. Meaning in one regard that what is right and true for this person isn’t automatically so for that person, and instead everything hinges upon the individual, situation, or objective. For example, as a single father, I am adamantly opposed to living with the Queen before marriage. Ignoring my religious rationale momentarily, I don’t desire that way of life for either of my children, or hers, and I would never want the four of them to use what they had witnessed with their parents as their justification for doing so. How could the Queen or I tell them ‘no’ to living with a boyfriend or girlfriend, say in college, when they saw us do it first? However, many single parents for any number of reasons don’t share this same conviction. Yet I’m willing to bet that none of them who do cohabitate, if asked, would want their children to ever live with someone to whom they’re not married.

And this brings me back to Helen Gurley Brown. Could Mrs. Brown have been so vocal and passionate about her views on sex and the self-exploitation of a woman’s sexual wares if she was the mom to a little girl? Could she have been as shameless about the way women ought to view themselves if there were children at home? Could she still have wanted women to be ‘sex objects’ and have a teenage daughter at the same time? And if so, would she have desired the same for those children?

 

I was asked in an interview sometime ago what it is like to be a single father and date. Generally in regard to my kids and particularly how my relationship with the Queen might impact my ten-year-old daughter, how she sees herself and the world around her.

Every mom and dad knows that kids are perceptive, they are always watching and learning, especially when it comes to their parents. And if those parents aren’t mindful about how they behave around their kids they could very well find the same harmful behaviors they model today repeated in their children tomorrow. Is it any wonder why kids who see their mom or dad drink excessively tend to abuse alcohol later in life?

And that’s when parents begin to spin a web of deceit. On the surface it seems almost intrinsic that, as adults, we have privileges our children have yet to earn and that fact is true. As an adult I can drive a car, drink a beer, and go into debt, and all at the same time if I wanted. However, it’s also true that this distinction between what I can do and what my kids can’t do should stop when the very thing I’m doing today is that thing I would never want my children to do tomorrow, or ever.

The big lie parents tell is this, that because we’re adults we can to do things our children can’t – because we are older, know more, and can handle it – but the problem with stopping there is we expect them to then differentiate between what they aren’t ready for now and what they ought never be ready for. Are there habits or addictions you have today that you would never want your children to take up, and in fact you’d be mortified if they ever discovered them, yet you justify those behaviors to yourself with the excuse ‘I’m an adult’?

You see, the big lie we tell isn’t one that’s told to our children, it’s one we tell to ourselves.

What I admire most from reading about Helen Gurley Brown was how she lived by her convictions no matter the personal cost. That’s a very rare trait in people these days. And I have to believe that if she had been a parent, which her and her husband chose never to become, she would have turned down Cosmopolitan and went to work for Good Housekeeping instead.

Letting go of a relationship

To many of us, being successful in terms of a career is important, but equally so is being content and fulfilled in a good relationship. When we think we’ve found it, our happiness knows no bounds. And when it seems like it’s over, we go through a gamut of emotions – anger, despair, grief, sadness, and depression. We feel lost and adrift, unsure what our next move should be. It’s actually very clear. It’s akin to losing a near and dear one. And when that happens, the first step is to let go.

Letting go of a relationship (and a partner) that has meant everything to us isn’t the easiest thing to do. But it has to be done if we have to move on, for we cannot live in the present and look ahead to the future until we achieve closure on the past. How can we let go? Letting go of a relationship involves letting go of:

1. The feelings/emotions
The anger, animosity and resentment you may feel towards your partner, now your ex. There could be a sense of betrayal if he/she cheated on you, or if you were the one responsible for the break-up, a feeling of guilt. Don’t stifle your emotions and bottle them up, but allow yourself to grieve over the demise of what could have been and possibly was, something wonderful. But you have to set a time limit – you cannot keep wallowing in grief and sadness – it will get to be a habit.

2. Envisioning possibilities
Don’t dwell on what might-have-been. Letting go of a relationship involves recognizing that it was not meant to be and that you have to set new goals and build new dreams. Avoid having unrealistic expectations or hopes that you may get back together. Or that he would change and perhaps become the person you want him/her to be or your problems will just get sorted out. Realize that the relationship has run its course and it is time to let go.

3. Your dependency
Often when we have been in a relationship for some time – a few months, a year or several years – we tend to lose our identity. We get used to having the other person around and derive comfort from the familiar. It isn’t easy to start getting used to coming home to an empty house or having dinner by yourself. It is something you will have to steel yourself to do if you have to wean yourself from your dependence on the other person.

4. Idolizing the relationship
It’s easy when you’re not with someone any longer, and especially if you’re miserable on your own to miss all the good times you shared. Happy memories are to be cherished but not to the point where that’s all you think about and aren’t doing anything about making new ones. You must remember that if there was so much happiness in the relationship, chances are you’d still be together. You probably had some very serious problems and unhappy times – times when you wanted out and couldn’t bear being in the same room with your ex. These are the times you have to think about and realize that your best bet right now lies in letting go of the past and enjoying your single life.

5. All contact
It has to be a clean break. Don’t tell yourself you’re going to call her one last time or give it just one more try. Don’t keep calling up friends and asking them if they are already seeing someone new or if she’s as depressed as you are. If you are serious about letting go of your relationship you have to carve out a new existence, one that has no room for old baggage.

6. Your fears
If you have to truly let go of a relationship, you have to forget your apprehensions and worries about being alone and how you’ll cope. And you also have to learn to trust again. Not just someone else but also yourself and your instincts. One, two or even more broken relationships doesn’t mean that we should close ourselves off from loving again. After all, relationships may involve agony but they also involve ecstasy and life wouldn’t be complete without a healthy dose of both.

7. Generalizations
You cannot generalize and harbor false assumptions that just because your ex cheated on you, abused you or caused emotional damage, your next relationship/partner will follow suit. You cannot tar everyone with the same brush; after all there is such a thing as giving someone, and a new relationship, a fair chance.

8. Your sense of failure
Just as it takes two to tango and two hands to clap, it also takes two to makes a relationship work. Don’t berate yourself for what you could have done better or how you could have been more understanding. You’ve probably been terribly hurt but have also learnt a few valuable lessons about life and love in the process – something that will stand you in good stead for the journey ahead.
When you are ready to let go of a relationship and reconcile yourself to keeping the past in the past, you will experience an enormous weight being lifted off your shoulders and a sense of accomplishment that you have come out of the whole experience a much stronger person.

Dealing With Kids And Their Online Lives

                                            
It’s something that is still relatively new. Kids being on the internet. Being so new is what makes it so scary. As a parent seeing how my daughter loves the internet, I can only imagine how dicey is will soon become as she and her friends branch out from Barbie and Nick. I’m sure Facebook and Twitter are not far away. Ugh, what a nightmare. I can’t even stand the idea of Jasmine having a cell phone with a camera on it. I will certainly read up about all the new and upcoming safeguards people and companies are developing.

That being said, I found an interesting piece in The Huffington Post Family section. It’s about learning the crazy acronyms kids use when texting, IM’ing, emailing, etc. Sure, we know LOL, LMFAO, and some other “old” terms that have become part of popular culture. But you know these kids have their own languages already, so it must translate to the computer as well. I can’t even utter the phrase “sexting” without dry heaving.

Here’s some goodies from the article:

There are a number of sites out there that help us decode the many seemingly crazy messages our kids are sending back and forth. Teen Chat Decoder and No Slang have Internet text “translators” to help parents decode these cryptic messages — especially the ones that discuss drinking, drugs and sex. And I can assure you, they do.
As a starter, here are 25 text message acronyms that all parents should know:

1. ASL — Age/Sex/Location
2. BF/GF — Boyfriend/Girlfriend
3. CD9 — Code 9 (means parents are around)
4. DYWTMUS — Do You Want To Meet Up Somewhere?
5. GNOC — Get Naked on Cam
6. GTG — Got to Go
7. IDK — I Don’t Know
8. (L)MIRL — (Lets) Meet in Real Life
9. LOL — Laugh Out Loud
10. MorF — Male or Female
11. MOS — Mom Over Shoulder
12. NIFOC — Naked in Front of Computer
13. P911 — Parent Emergency
14. PAW — Parents are Watching
15. PIR — Parent In Room
16. POS — Parent Over Shoulder
17. PRON — Porn
18. PRW — Parents Are Watching
19. RUH — Are you horny?
20. Sup? — What’s Up?
21. TDTM — Talk Dirty To Me
22. WAUW — What Are You Wearing?
23. WTH L8TR — Want to Hang Later?
24. WTF — What the Fuck
25. WTTP — Want to Trade Pics?

In the case of “sexting,” or sending sexually explicit text messages, it is important to warn your child of 2 things:

1. In most states, teens caught with “sexting pictures” on their phones can actually be charged with possession of child pornography — even if they themselves are under 18, and sometimes even if the images are self portraits.
2. These images can be permanent. It may seem fun and risky to send sexy pictures to a current boyfriend, but what happens when the relationship ends? Can that person really be trusted not to do anything with those images? It’s not a chance your teen should take.