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This morning I was watching the news and they featured a story about a teenage girl who had taken a nude picture of herself with her cell phone and then sent it to her boyfriend at the time. When their relationship went sour, the picture ended up being sent around to hundreds (they either said one hundred or hundreds, either way, it's a load of people) of kids that attended her school. She was allegedly constantly harassed after that. She decided that the one thing she could do about it was increase awareness of "Sexting" - taking nude pictures with your cell phone. She was a guest on the news but was in silhouette and had her voice altered. Sometime later she attended a funeral of a fellow teen that had committed suicide and shortly after that her mother found her dead in her room, also a victim of suicide.

This girl's mother was on the news and discussing her thoughts on the situation. She seemed to basically be blaming the school system for not intervening. She said something along the lines of "The school can call me when my child is truant and they can send me letters if my child has done something wrong, but they don't do anything to stop this sort of thing from continuing."

This is where I got a little confused and slightly irritated. First, this girl took the photo of herself. She was not forced by another party to sit and pose. It was her and her phone. Second, she sent it to someone else. Everyone knows that pictures can be incriminating. If you don't want people to see you doing something, you probably shouldn't take a picture of it, let alone give it to someone else. And lastly, she was the one that made the decision to take her own life.

Now, I feel sorry for the girl for the unfortunate events that transpired. I once was a teenage girl that craved the attention of the opposite sex. I wanted to feel loved, needed, and pretty. I guess what I'm saying is that I can actually understand her taking the picture. I can even understand sending it to her boyfriend. I can understand being harrassed and bullied and being pushed to the point of feeling desperate to end all of the hurt. What I don't understand is what happened to accountability. This girl was the one that made all three of these major decisions and her mom is trying to blame the school. Really? The school has knowledge of whether a student attends a class or not. But, how could they possibly know what kind of picture messages are being sent around on the students phones? And, if we're going to point any fingers, I'd like to ask the mom if she holds herself accountable. Where was she? Why didn't she do more? The bottom line is that we all cannot be watching over eachother every second of every day. Yeah, maybe this girl would still be alive if the school did something, or maybe even if the mom did something, but, maybe not.

I guess my point is that we are responsible for our own actions. When all is said and done, WE make the decision to act in certain ways. It's frustrating to see people pointing the finger at someone else and asking why something wasn't done. Like I said, I'm sorry for the girl and what happened to her but I believe that she is the one that is accountable in this situation.

What do you think? I'd love to hear other opinions.