A while back, I chose to intentionally not chase the latest hot stories for the sake of tying my own spin on them in the name of generating traffic. It’s not all that genuine and can really diminish a blogger’s voice in the grand scheme of things. Today, I make an exception as I follow the story of Mo’ne Davis.
As a parent of three young daughters, I hope and pray they will be raised up correctly in this rapidly evolving world of social and technological change. In this story, there are underlying storylines I simply cannot shake. For starters though, let me catch you up to speed.
Mo’ne Davis caught the world’s attention when while pitching in the 2014 Little League World Series. Along the way, she achieved many firsts for female Little League pitchers. She received kudos from athletes and celebrities, appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated, released a memoir, donated her jersey to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and was named one of the 25 most influential teens by Time Magazine to name just a few in a long list of accomplishments and accolades.
This past Saturday, it was reported that, upon learning that Disney would be producing a movie based upon her story, Bloomsburg University baseball player Joey Casselberry was kicked off the team for posting an offensive tweet about Mo’ne Davis.
The sports world and many other outlets were outraged. Mo’ne, by her own admission, was hurt by the tweet, but her response showed enormous poise and probably shocked a lot of people… she emailed the school and asked for the player to be reinstated!
She expressed an understanding that we all make mistakes, that he is probably hurt even more than her, that she knows how hard Casselberry has worked to reach the point he had, and that if it had been her who had a lapse of judgment, she would give anything to take the tweet back.
Wow. How proud her parents must be of her and her response.
There are so many lessons we can take away from this one example of social media gone wild. My oldest daughter has told me more than once that she “can’t wait to get on the Tweeter” (yes, she calls it Tweeter).
I think about the world of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Path, Tumblr, etc. I think about it and think about all the terrible things I would have posted and/or done had it been around when I was a teenager. I think about it and it scares the heck outta me.
My plan, as a parent, is to make sure I do everything I can to prepare my kids for the world – not just of social media but the world in general. I hope I can teach them the essential need to think about your every decision and to consider risks and consequences with the long haul perspective of life in mind. At the same time, I hope – and pray – they have an eternal perspective in view.
I don’t know Ms. Davis’s place with God or her views on religion and I won’t pretend to put words in her mouth. But I urge parents to use her example as a way to truly live out what Jesus instructed in Matthew 5:39 by understanding what Jesus meant by “turning the other cheek.”
As for the world of social media, as we have seen from this example, it’s also important we follow the teaching of Proverbs 21:23 that says; “Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble.” Or, as Mo’ne says, “You gotta think about what you are doing before you actually do it.”