Jesus, Mary And Joseph

Thing One has an Instagram account.  As with his email and texting privileges, one of our conditions for granting him permission to go onto IG was that we have access to his account at all times.  So, when my girlfriend texted me that I needed to go look at the comments under a certain picture, I was easily able to log in and view them.  Dear God and little chickens, what a shit show.

I can't go into details for a number of good reasons, but suffice it to say that two kids who haven't been getting along for a while ended up having a very public fight in the comment section under what was actually a lovely picture.  During the fight, one party visibly hit the point of no return and then went absolutely nuclear on the other, on a subject that would have been much better discussed via DM (i.e., privately) rather than in air-all-the-dirty-laundry style if the two parties really *had* to have the conversation on Instagram.  The Internetz being forever and all that.

While reading the string, I observed that Thing One had stepped in electronically mid-battle to try to mediate the dispute, which resulted in a rapid ceasefire.  Leadership is not his strong suit at home, but it was solidly on display on my iPad screen; guess his school persona is different.  I was impressed.   Nevertheless, we ended up having a long conversation afterward about what topics are and are not appropriate for public and/or electronic discussion and I suspect I now have a few more gray hairs than I had at lunchtime. Sigh.  And good GRIEF am I glad that social media did not exist when I was in middle school!