Maybe Narrow Your Definition of the Word "Mistakes"

a boomer ponders the future, and as they do -- thinks about today's Youth:

A "disposal camera" is,  I presume, what we called a "disposable camera," that is, a type of film camera, a type associated with the 1980s and 90s. Because you needed to get the pictures developed and printed, you had time to think about whether you really wanted to share them. Regret is just not the same these days. I wonder how today's young people will live with their old mistakes years from now.

In America, young women "caught" having sex early via pregnancy were said to have made "mistakes". (The inseminators got a pass, as there was no way to officially identify them, before scientific progress changed the way the game is played via birth control, and DNA testing.)

Now, we don't really think of unplanned pregnancies as "mistakes".

Ditto with the kids today sharing pictures of their naked bodies on social media.  It's not a healthy thing (kids compare and contrast, and use all those fancy photo filters... it's unnatural.)

But sharing pictures of your body -- and God forbid, your body itself -- is something those crazy kids do, in America and elsewhere.  I get it, nobody wants the job of parenting -- it's hard when your kid comes home with hurt feelings. or an unplanned pregancy, say.

But life is about growing up and transitioning from Youth to adult.  The adult world has tried since forever to sell Youth on its own magical promises of what the future will bring and what it can be.  But the truth is, and always has been, that Youth own the futures, their own especially...

And sometimes mistakes aren't really Mistakes, and what seems like such a horrible thing that needs overcoming (or worse, parental "fixing") -- whether it's a baby 9 months later crying out in a new world, or a young person who learns they can indeed live on beyond public exposure on the internet -- is just a matter of making choices that people including parents and professors will learn to live with...

Fear not for the Future. Leave the kids alone.

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Update in the comments section:

 Owen said...

“Regret is just not the same these days. I wonder how today's young people will live with their old mistakes years from now.” The ego naturally seeks to justify and defend itself. If one is confronted with too much irrefutable evidence of one’s shameful past acts, one will partition one’s mind, suppress the evidence and minimize its meaning . Perhaps the result of this defensiveness is unmanageable madness but more likely it will be an angry defiance. Regret? Not so much. Regret is a chance to reflect, correct oneself, grow a little more humble and less stupid, to make amends. It will become harder to experience real regret and grow wiser from it.

Lol. Taking off your clothes, admiring yourself, sharing pictures of yourself with your peers... this is an inherently EVIL Act.  Do Not Forget.  (sheesh, you'd think they were raising kids in the time of AIDS or something...)

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** Just like you can educate your children about ways to have safer sex and protect themselves with barriers, you can teach them about photography too.  Namely, do they want everybody on the internet possible looking at their hoo-haw and hee-hawing over it, past the initial recipient? Explain how they risk that, even if they really really trust their boyfriend/girlfriend.  Explain how they can send a body shot without sending an identifying head shot...  I know, I know. That's like giving them a condom is encouraging them to do the thing you don't want them to do!  Educate them anyway, in practical matters as well as sharing your morals.  They'll thank you later.

And don't call them "mistakes".  Not the best choices, is a better way to word it. And again, you might be surprised when they come out the other side, how much stronger and better they are for having overcome not-the-best-situation((s) of their own making or not -- understanding that some lesser choices really are made out of ignorance initially.