MySpace Age Limits

We just recently realized that my daughter and her friends are claiming to be older than they really are on MySpace. Apparently, you are supposed to be at least 14 to use it--my daughter and her friends are 13. My daughter was claiming to be 17, and some of her friends were claiming to be as old as 19. There haven't been any ill effects from this--they are all set to private and only let their real-life friends on their friends lists. Still, it is a bit scary. We don't want older boys trying to get her to add them as friends. We talked to her and she corrected it--that is when we found out about the 14 and up requirement. We are trying to decide what to do now. Let her keep it and say she is 14? Or make her wait until her birthday? There are many things in life that you have to wait for--15 for a driver's permit, 16 for a license, 18 to make adult decisions legally, etc. But why 14 for MySpace? It isn't illegal for a 13 year old to get online--shouldn't parents make that decision? Still, I don't want to encourage lying. It's that "everyone else does" situation--and I feel like saying, "but you are NOT everyone else!" From what we can see, everything has been totally safe and innocent--except for the age thing. Her teachers at school are even on her friends list and check in sometimes. My son is 15 and started his MySpace last year when he was 14. My daughter just started hers a few weeks ago at 13. She is trying to catch up to her brother in so many ways, but I just wish she would slow down a bit. I want her to enjoy being 13, then 14, then 15...each age is an experience unto itself. I am beginning to convince myself to make her wait until her birthday--this will encourage honesty and give her some time to enjoy being 13 before moving into the world of 14 year olds. It definitely won't hurt her to wait--she can still do email, talk on the phone, and text message her friends. There don't seem to be age limits on those things. I'll look into this a bit more and make a decision soon. This reminds me of the PG-13 decision: we took her to movies such as Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean when she was under 13--and I think they were all rated PG-13. She definitely seemed mature enough to handle PG-13 movies at 11 and 12. It feels a lot like the same kind of decision, except we didn't lie about her age to buy the movie tickets. If parents are okay with their under-13 year olds going to PG-13 movies, it's okay. I guess I need to think about this a little longer. There are other things that will come up regarding age limits--some are simply recommendations, and some are laws. I definitely want to obey the laws and will enforce them regarding my teens and age limits. In other cases, it is simply recommended that parents consider the age suggestions, and then make their decisions on an individual basis. I can see that we will be making MANY decisions about what we will let them do at certain ages and what we will make them wait to do. This is one of the more difficult tasks of parenting teenagers---I hope we make the right decisions about this. No one ever said that parenting teenagers was going to be easy!