And so we are here, at a very fear monger-y article written by a Pearl acolyte pointing to one very long run on paragraph by Michael Pearl on a twenty year old piece. This article is in this month’s No Greater Joy magazine and the author seems completely have missed that it’s more the advertorial, an advertisement for a service couched in language that can make you think it’s more editorial.

The original article in Heavy and YouTube video are made by a company that does a cyber security app – Bark. While no one disputes that cyber security for kids is an important issue indeed their numbers and allegations seem rather too alarming, which makes Michael Pearl fully embrace the content.

NGJ’s Karen Sargent is in full scared mom fear mongering mode in her piece, first explaining how the mother in the video appeared as an eleven year old and oh my how the dirty bad nekkid photos rolled in.

“Are you hearing this, Mama? Are you paying attention, Daddy? In just two hours of an innocuous photo on Instagram, sick, twisted perverts are sending your innocent little girl pornographic photos of themselves and asking her to participate in activities too horrific to imagine.

Where are you while this is happening? Are you driving while she sits in the back seat and has her mind forever polluted by the filth of the world? Are you watching TV in the living room while she lies on her bed enjoying a little social media time with her “friends”?
It is not innocent or harmless entertainment. It is you standing at the door of your child’s mind and heart and actively inviting the devil in. It is not enough to put a filter on the Internet in your home. Your children have access to the Web everywhere they go. Their friends have cell phones with unfiltered Internet. Some girls are “groomed” through their school email accounts.

And it’s pervasive: social media, Fortnite and Minecraft, TikTok, and chat apps. Small children are targeted while watching My Little Pony videos on YouTube and playing games designed for very young children. Literally any time your child is on the Internet, he or she is a potential victim.”

I just have to point out the obvious here. Adulting. Parenting. There is no reason a child could not have boundaries and rules governing where they go and what they see online. There are plenty of apps like “Bark” that a reasonable parent could put on a phone or tablet. There are filters. There are even parental settings you can put on a Smart Phone to avoid all of this unpleasantness.

It goes without saying that actually talking to your child, explaining about people, bad people online, people that groom, and many different things need to happen if a child gets a phone or a tablet. This is just another aspect of good parenting.

“Do you feel paranoid? You should. You are no match for the devil’s world. So what is a parent to do in this age of high-tech?

Say no. No, you will not have a cell phone or a tablet or computer of your own. You will not have a school email account (all necessary emails can be sent to the parents). You will not sleep over at your friend’s house. Your friend may not bring her cell phone here. You will not ride the bus to school.

Will that be enough? Will she be protected if we just homeschool and home church and don’t let her have a cell phone?

Sadly, no. So much of life in the 21st century is technologically driven, and it is becoming exponentially more so every day. Eventually the children will leave home for work or school. It is not enough to shield them from the dangers that are out there; we must teach them to guard their own hearts. Train them to be vigilant gate-keepers of their own minds so that when the first glimmer of temptation shows up, they are so well trained they instinctively flee. We must insulate them from within, as Mike wrote in this article 18 years ago.”

So which is it? Train them to flee, or keep them sealed in that tiny box?

From that other story from twenty years ago of Mike’s? All you need to know how insanely prohibitive the Pearls are is this story:

““Christians” were and remain our greatest enemies. Our children are all gone except one daughter, yet Deb still gets to the magazines first and exercises her censorship rights. I don’t care what the article is, if there is an unclad female on the other side, I won’t get to read it. There will be a hole torn in the page. This is what I referred to as “insulating your children (and husbands) from without.” It is needful, but not sufficient.”

I am reminded of a story about Weird Al’s mother drawing clothing on the hussies in the TV Guide lest Al be corrupted by naked flesh.

Here’s Bark’s video. What do you think?

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