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Families 183families the lack of high-quality infrastructure is intentional. Mic, a fifteenyear-oldof Egyptian descent in Los Angeles, noted that his parents willnot allow him to have the Internet at home: “I don’t really have access tothe Internet at home because my dad always hears bad things happeningon MySpace and he doesn’t think I’m mature enough to get the Internetat this point” (boyd, Teen Sociality in Networked Publics). The mediaaccess of one of Lisa Tripp’s interviewees is restricted for similar reasons;she reported that her mother will allow her online only if she is in thesame room, and that her mother often hides or takes the ethernet cableand modem with her when she leaves the house (Tripp and Herr-Stephenson, Los Angeles Middle Schools). In their “Teaching and Learningwith Multimedia” study, parents consistently expressed concern aboutchild predators’ using sites such as MySpace to find kids.Whereas concerns over child predators preoccupied some parents, othersstruggled with the Internet’s ability to distract kids from the main work ofchildhood: education. Juan, a working-class Mexican immigrant supportinghis two daughters as a single parent, described this dilemma:No, no. Hay que tener Internet pero quitar esos programas. Porque muchos los quitaron,¿verdad? Porque si no ya no se van a dedicar al estudio sino a lo demás.(No, no. It is okay to have Internet, but you have to remove those programs [pornographyand MySpace]. Many parents have removed them, right? Otherwise kidswon’t study, and are only going to be doing that.) (Translation by Lisa Tripp)As Juan suggested, many parents feel compelled to be very strict aboutwebsites that are oriented to entertainment or communication with friends.Juan, and other parents like him, feels it is important to send a clearmessage to his kids about the value of the computer for education. Anita,a Mexican immigrant in a working-class family in Los Angeles, talked toLisa Tripp about how she routinely argues with her thirteen-year-olddaughter Nina about going online (Tripp and Herr-Stephenson, Los AngelesMiddle Schools 2006).Anita: [Mi hija] se pone en la computadora y le digo que la computadora espara hacer tarea, no es para estar buscando cosas en la computadora. Y a veces[mis hijas] se me enojan por eso. Y les digo: “No, la computadora yo se las tengopara que hagan tarea.” A veces les pregunto: “¿tienen tarea?” O: “estás haciendotarea.” Pero a veces tengo que estar lista a ver qué es lo que están haciendo.Se meten a la Internet y tantas cosas que sale salen ahí. Y se ponen a mirar