What's Wrong With These Crazy Kids? (Part 1)

As an educator and administrator I often hear parents ask this question, "What wrong with these kids these days?"  The answers do not lie far from us but we seem to always miss the ball.  In the first part of this three part blog, I would like to look at the most powerful thing in our kids lives, media.

Media surrounds us.  From the first days of television to the information that gets shoved into our smartphones waiting for us to consume it.  It is all around us literally.  This is not a bad thing but what has come through media over the past few decades is a matter of discussion.  Lets take television to begin with.  In 1956 when Elvis appeared on the Ed Sullivan show, his trademark pelvis was shoved off of the screen.  By the third time he appeared on the show, cameras would only show his upper half.  Fast forward to the last ten years or so.  I often joke with my students that the M in MTV stands for Morse Code.  Why, because every time I turn it on all I hear is beeps.  That's not to mention the pervasive conduct and dastardly moral situations that arise in many reality programming that is aired.  I hear what you are saying, well that's cable television and if you pay for it should be allowed a little more leeway.   What about network television?  I saw in the popular show "Scandal" a couple having sex doggystyle over an office table.  That makes the hips of Elvis look a little tame to me.  My point is, the evolution television content is troubling and the examples of such could go on and on.

I was 12 once and I could not be completely sheltered from dirty words.  I remember sneaking my NWA and 2 Live Crew tapes into my room and listening to it them for hours on end.  The difference today is that back then, you had to sneak those tapes around and today you just have to turn on the radio.  The lyrics in many pop songs may not have feature the F word or the N word but you can definitely tell what is being said around the loose efforts of censorship that does take place.  Take the song "Guerilla" by Bruno Mars as an example.  No cuss words but we know exactly what he is talking about.  My 10 year old daughter knows every word somehow so I tunr the station if it comes on.  I try not to keep up with pop music but I feel like I have to.  There is some dance/techno song out now that has no words except for the line "We're just f**king animals!" in it.  Seriously?  Maybe I am now officially old but come on man.

Here's a can of worms - the internet.  Wow the questionable content flows like wine doesn't it?  We as parents can have some control over my first two examples but this one is a bit of a trick.  You can get any crazy thing you want off of the world wide web and there are very few safeguards for parents.  Well, I should say few that the kids have not yet figured a way around yet.  My son and daughter love the game Minecraft on their iPads.  I think its great.  It is a great tool to foster creativity if you can deal with all the lingo and zombie stuff.  Like any body, when you want to improve your space on Minecraft you simply go to the internet and surely you can find ideas.  My five year old discovered this and he found Youtube videos with walkthroughs and how to's. Great right?  Wrong, the narrator used scores of profanity in his video and we had to shut it down.  Now, it is fair to say that my five year has no clue what those words mean but we cannot let him think that it is acceptable language.  If we let is slide, we are letting the internet do our parenting and that is what has been happing with our kids.  They are cultured to believe sex and being sexy is normal, then we send them to school and tell them its not.  We wonder why they are so frustrated.

Who is to blame for all of this?  There has to be a scapegoat.  First I will say look in the mirror and I need to as well.  We have to be the change we want to see.  That's should sound familiar.  There is a reason though that we have went from covering Elvis' hips in the 50's to allowing cartoon characters in South Park to have gay sex on screen.  As always, follow the money.  The FCC determines the standards for censorship and over the past few decades it has gotten way more liberal.  Now you Obama haters should not start any new bumper stickers just yet.  I said past few decades.  A review of congressional contributions by the media industry shows a large growth from 1998 to now.  The largest donor is Comcast.  The largest recipient, Alison Grimes who is running against Mitch McConnell for a Kentucky Senate seat.  Traditionally they contribute more to Democrats but the flow of money is troubling.  Just like anything else that smells funny in this country, we should be looking for the campaign money.  Are we willing to solve the problem politically?  Is there a lobby for people that just a want a shot at raising their kids right?  the answer is no and that's why it continues.  Sometimes parenting has to be done in the voting booth.


http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=B02
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/wayoflife/07/31/censorship/