Exes and facebook and guns, oh my

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this is really not autism related, unless my oldest turns out to be on the spectrum when he is tested this fall. but i am so upset and have nowhere else to vent =/

i logged onto facebook today, first time in a month, and found that my 13 yr old who is currently away visiting his father for the summer updated his profile picture. it was him, in a gangster pose.... WITH TWO HANDGUNS. real ones. and his father took the picture.

i freaked out. called them both, couldnt get them due to the time difference. his father finally called me back. he thinks there is nothing wrong or illegal with the picture. lets put aside the fact that its illegal in his state for a child to have a handgun in his possession AND illegal for anyone to give a child a handgun. who in their right mind lets a CHILD use handguns as props, takes a gangster picture, and doesnt mind it being posted on the internet? parents have been arrested for such things.

and my poor son is stuck in the middle. he took the picture down, and while he understands i am upset about it, he is confused because of his fathers role in the matter making it acceptable. he is not a worldly kid, he is very naive and he tends to think gangster stuff is cool, despite our many talks to the contrary. this is only confusing him more.

his schoolmates on facebook have seen the picture and my son doesnt quite understand how that may change their perception of him, and not in a good way. to make matters worse, some of those schoolmates are friended on facebook with their schools principal. i can only hope she never saw it as kids have been expelled from schools for pictures like that.

and then my ex has the nerve to say maybe our son isnt safe to live here with me because i told him that where we live, children with guns use them to kill other children. well we live in a larger city than his father does, but at least in my house, parents dont allow children to play with guns.

i am just flabbergasted that any parent could find it acceptable. completely appalled.

All I can say, is that it's a good thing your ex is your ex. It's a shame he doesn't have as much sense as you do!

Wow
I feel for you, I would have the exact same reaction! And don't you just hate the "Why are you so upset about it" attitude they take when something freaks us out like that?

First of all, as for the definition of "possession", that refers to giving it to him to store in his room or backpack. It is legal to hand a kid a handgun to check it out or to take them shooting as long as they have their parent's permission. That being said, taking pictures of him with guns in a gangster pose is an irresponsible thing to teach him. Such pictures posted on facebook could cause him to be put under the microscope by the school administration.

If it was sporting looking pictures of a target shooting trip that would be one thing, but what your ex did was really stupid and the safety habits of gun owners that behave like that worry me.

This kind of statement is always a hysterical exaggeration. Children occasionally use baseball bats to kill other children, but it does not happen every day and nobody's calling baseball bats evil.

The photo is a truly stupid judgment call, and I would have a problem with that, too. It promotes an unhealthy culture, of violence, drugs, mindless materialism and the basest objectification of women. While I wouldn't be upset if someone took my child to a firing range and taught them to shoot and handle a weapon responsibly, the fact that they encouraged and glorified gangsta culture while handling a live firearm would send me through the roof.

Teaching self defense and personal responsibility is one thing - teaching a kid that drive-bys are cool is the worst kind of parenting.

Is your son's father also teaching him proper respect for and handling of firearms? If not, perhaps he should be. If the kid spends some time at a firing range being taught proper gun safety, maybe he wouldn't so readily take "gangster poses".