I wrote the following for my local newspaper’s editorial column in 2005, but it’s one of my favorites, so I thought I’d go ahead and post it here (it’s on my website too). Wish I could still say I’m 30!
Ahhh . . . Remember the good old days? The days when families would gather around the TV and watch the evening sitcoms without fear of profanity, nudity or other sights inappropriate for children; when a movie that was rated PG-13 was actually okay for thirteen year olds? Forget about TV shows on public stations with nudity like “NYPD Blue;” they were unheard of. And the PG-13 movies we have today? They would have been rated R when I was a kid. Wait a minute, was this really so long ago?
The fact that I am only thirty, yet have seen such a rapid decline in the morality of our society and the media throughout my relatively short lifetime, tells a really sad story. It’s not like I’m some old codger, reminiscing about the “innocent” days gone by, or even that I’m ultra-conservative, but I find myself becoming increasingly offended with the images and attitudes portrayed in the media. It is said that art (in this case, the media) reflects reality, but these days it’s more that the media hugely influences our reality.
Gone are the days of the family sitcom, the ones my family used to watch, like “The Cosby Show,” “Perfect Strangers,” or “Home Improvement.” I can’t say for certain right now, since I haven’t actually watched a sitcom in over a year, but last time I checked on the public networks (besides PBS), there was not one show that I would let my kids see. And this is supposed to be primetime, “family” time. Yeah, Urkel was cheesy, but at least our parents didn’t have to worry about what we were watching, or have to explain any adult situations to us.
The TV rarely even comes on in our house anymore, unless it’s PBS or a DVD. Since we don’t have cable, our options are limited – no Nickelodeon or Disney Channel for us. Frankly, I like it that way. There’s less chance of the kids seeing something they shouldn’t. Right now they are addicted to “Little House on the Prairie” on DVD; it’s family-oriented, entertaining, clean, and teaches great values, which is a lot more than most TV shows these days.
I used to scoff at my parents’ and grandparents’ complaints about the “bad” attitudes and the increase of violence and sex in the media. They were just old fuddy-duddies who needed to get with the times and lighten up. Then I had my own children, implicit media consumers, and my entire view changed. Suddenly, the “garbage in, garbage out” line my parents were always saying started to, gulp, actually make sense.
The older my kids get, the more incensed I am with the shallow attitudes and situations the media portrays regarding sex, beauty and violence. Beauty is often depicted as the most important virtue one can have and sex is shown as purely casual, rarely with consequences.
Is it any wonder that teenage pregnancy is so rampant, kids bring guns to school, Internet porn is so (scarily) accessible, and increasingly younger and younger girls have eating disorders? These are impressionable, malleable, innocent minds that should only have to be thinking about childish things like school and the upcoming football game, not worrying about matters we adults encounter. They have plenty of time for that later, when they actually ARE adults. Why are we making our kids grow up so fast?
Sometimes I wish I could take my kids and move to a deserted island (are there any left?) where the tentacles of the media couldn’t reach them. They could just be kids, playing, learning, and laughing. All the joys of childhood in its purest form could still be theirs instead of the dark realities of the world beginning to seep in at a far too young age, ruining their innocence and stealing the short time that they already have as children.
There’s a reason why half of marriages end up in divorce, why kids are having sex earlier and earlier, why there are so many STDs, affairs, drugs and lives devastated. In a world that is increasingly becoming a proponent of self-absorption, it’s no surprise that immorality is epidemic.
Uh oh, I’m starting to sound like my mother.
Parenting By Trial and Error 