MySpace Monday – No. 17
This makes me SO mad! So so so SOOO typical of today’s parents. Last Thursday, it was reported in California that a 13-year-old girl ran away to meet with a 14-year-old boy in Idaho she met on MySpace. A follow-up story (on Friday) stated that the boy knew nothing about the girl’s disappearance and that the parents “blamed MySpace for fueling Alyssa’s decision to apparently run away.”
Really? REALLY!?
So it had nothing to do with the fact that you didn’t monitor how your 13-year-old girl used social networks that connect her to millions of strangers around the world? It seems many parents today only want to reap the benefits and enjoy the good times of parenting, while ignoring all the responsibilities and shrugging off the accountability.
This is actually prevalent across all issues; a middle school teacher I know says parents are so quick to yell at her when their child has a bad grade, rather than talking to their own child about doing well in school. Just like parents would rather blam a social networking website before they realized they should have been using PC Pandora.
Anyway, here are the stories, the original first and the follow-up second…
October 22, 2009
Police: 13-Year-Old Runs Away To Idaho For Boy On MySpace
Parents Found Note In Teen’s RoomBAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Police said that a 13-year-old girl has run away to Idaho to meet a 14-year-old boy she met on MySpace.
Alyssa Faye Brandon is considered at risk because she is a first-time runaway and she has been communicating with a 14-year-old boy in Idaho by telephone and via MySpace, according to Detective Mary DeGeare of the Bakersfield Police Department.
DeGeare told ABC23 that Brandon was last seen by her parents Wednesday at 9:30 a.m., and is believed to be en route to Idaho.
Brandon’s parents told police that they found a note in her room stating that she’s run away.
The family was able to locate telephone records and found the number returns to Jerome, Idaho, according to DeGeare.Brandon is described as white with brown hair and brown eyes.
She is around 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 130 pounds.
Brandon has a burn scar on her upper right arm.
Law enforcement in Idaho has been notified.
October 23, 2009
Parents blame MySpace for daughter running off
By Eyewitness News staffBAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Andrea Brandon knocked on her daughter’s bedroom door Wednesday morning, but there was no answer.
The mother went inside and found the window open and a note on 13-year-old Alyssa Brandon’s bed. The note said Alyssa was “long gone,” and her parents said they think their daughter ran off to meet a boy nearly 900 miles away.
Andrea and Kyle Brandon said Thursday that Alyssa had met a 14-year-old boy from Jerome, Idaho, while using MySpace. They deleted Alyssa’s MySpace account before she went missing, but they found out she and the boy had also been calling each other.
“Just to have to make photocopies of your kid’s picture and write ‘missing’ under it is devastating,” Andrea Brandon said as she pleaded for help in finding her missing daughter. “There’s nothing like it in the world.”
The parents said police in Jerome contacted the boy, but he told them that he didn’t know anything about Alyssa’s disappearance. Bakersfield police are also on the case.
The Brandons blamed MySpace for fueling Alyssa’s decision to apparently run away.
Alyssa is described as being 5-foot-4 and 120 pounds with a burn scar on her upper right arm. She was last seen wearing blue jeans and a gray sweatshirt.
Anyone with information on Alyssa’s whereabouts is asked to call Bakersfield police at (661) 327-7111.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:27 PM
I know the family personally and as a matter of fact she NEVER accessed the internet from her home or her parents would’ve been monitoring it. The only time that girl was on the computer was when she was working on homework with a parent at her side. Se asked to have a myspace account at 12 years old and her parents said no because myspace states you have to be 14 years old to even create an account. She created an account at her babysitter’s house because HER daughter was allowed to use the internet unsupervised. These parents did EVERYTHING they could and it really is upsetting that people like you could pass judgement when you know nothing about these people. The parents never SAID they blamed myspace they said that because of her use of myspace they don’t know whether she’s 9 miles away or 900 and their daughter wouldn’t have met anyone in Jerome, Idaho if she hadn’t snuck access to a social networking site.
October 28th, 2009 at 2:20 PM
Alyssa’s family is not directing any blame on myspace or anywhere else, we are simply reaching out to the public for help on locating her. We dont make the Titles for the news articles and nowhere does Alyssa’s mother, Andrea, directly or indirectly put blame on anyone. WE ARE SIMPLY WANTING TO FIND ALYSSA BEFORE ANYTHING BAD HAPPENS TO HER. WE ARE FRUSTRATED NOT MAD, BGUT JUST MOSTLY AFRAID FOR HER LIFE.