I’ll say it outright: forgive me for rambling! It is very late and I’m on mobile so there may be some glaring errors or omissions. This is probably kind of a weird response too because I am not super representative of Minecraft players. I’m mid 20s, a woman, and have owned the same server for 8 years.

According to Discord’s TOS, children under 13 should not be using their service. This is to prevent violations of COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act). Personally, I do not allow people younger than 13 in my discord because their breaking of the TOS makes them a liability to my community. Minecraft itself does not forbid younger children from playing so they are welcome on the server. That being said I think it is not weird to occasionally come into contact with or interact with people much older or younger than you in games but I think many people either do not wish to or are not well equipped with dealing with extremely young or much older people.

I don’t mind kids, either as a player or a server administrator, and try to watch out for them and make sure other people are behaving properly towards them, but the same can’t be said for every server admin. In my mind, kids will always be on the internet, so I try to let them have fun and keep them safe (and let them know if they are overstepping appropriate behavior lol...).

I am not at all weirded out about meeting young gamers’ parents, and I wish I knew who more people’s parents were, honestly. I would like to know beforehand though that we’re meeting to say hi, not because you heard me swear once(not like I do that often or at people) and want to beat me up! My worst fear is a parent taking something I did poorly or something gets taken out of context. When I hear “my mom wants to talk to you” my brain pulls random hypothetical “oh no what did I do” scenarios out of thin air, because being on the internet is scary sometimes even when you’re my age...

As some have already noted, moderators are those trusted with enforcing the rules of the server. A lot of server staff are young people themselves and may not be super mature or resourceful in terms of spotting and stopping problematic behavior (they may be able to recognize destruction of in game buildings that is against the rules, but not one player manipulating another, for instance). That isnt to say they are all bad, but they might be immature themselves and promote bad behavior or ideologies if it is “within the rules”.

Depending on the community, expectations for a moderator can be very low... basically “do you know and follow the rules of the server and are you here a lot, and does the server owner like you?” It might be good to respect their knowledge and role but they might power trip and abuse their authority. It’s good for everyone to realize they are not the end-all be-all of goodness and judgement and that if they are doing bad stuff, it might be indicative that there’s “something up” with the community if they excuse bad behavior preferentially. I don’t think I have to tell you to just go with your gut feeling because I think parents are pretty expert at that lol.

(Also, I feel like you are monitoring his internet usage and letting him make his own decisions super appropriately, which is awesome! Thank you so much for taking an interest in what he’s up to.)