Pointing to the nearly one-third of U.S. children who are either obese or overweight, the administration will pursue a legislative agenda to support its efforts, expanding the federal school-lunch program by $10 billion over 10 years and spending $400 million to bring grocery stores to so-called food deserts, urban and rural areas without adequate food stores.

So I guess this means we’ll now own the corner groceries, right next to our federally owned and operated car dealerships.

Mrs. Obama comes at the issue as a mother. In interviews, she says her pediatrician pulled her aside and encouraged her to improve her family’s health status by initiating portion control, eliminating high-calorie convenience foods and sugary drinks, and getting her daughters moving with more exercise and less TV time.

She listened to her children’s doctor, and her daughters are healthier for it.

Now, the Obamas have committed themselves to eliminating not only the possibility that their daughters might be overweight, but also the entire nation’s childhood obesity health crisis, in the span of one generation.

No one can argue that this would be a good thing, as obesity is almost entirely preventable and contributes to some of the costliest maladies burdening our health care system.

Yet at the same time, Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative was announced, researchers at Ohio State University released a study that shows three factors most effectively reduce the risk of childhood obesity: eating family meals together several times per week, getting adequate sleep and limiting TV time.

Notably, these highly effective, risk-reducing solutions aren’t likely to be influenced by a multibillion-dollar federal government “investment.” In fact, they rely on exactly the tactics Mrs. Obama used — greater parental supervision and more healthful decision-making for one’s own children.

Good intentions aside, a presidential task force isn’t going to do what millions of American parents already don’t do — namely, pull the plug on the 68 percent of kids with televisions in their bedrooms, or on the average 53 hours per week that “Generations M’s” (8-to-18-year-olds) spend engaged with electronic media.

Nor will the task force change the way most families eat. For decades, our federal government already has offered far-reaching programs for nutrition promotion, food subsidies and disease prevention, and as Mrs. Obama points out, these problems are not going away.

On the other hand, we now have an abundance of government Web sites representing the growing nanny state for personal lifestyle support.

It’s worth a tour of the “.gov” cybersphere to see just how involved our federal bureaucracy is in our daily lives. The subject of nutrition alone already enjoys millions of dollars in government Internet attention — never mind the countless publications, pamphlets and educational programs.

In addition to Mrs. Obama’s new LetsMove.gov Web site, we can learn what and how to eat at teamnutrition.usda.gov, mypyramid.gov (another USDA site), healthymeals.nal.usda.gov (yet another USDA site), nifa.usda.gov (the National Institute of Food and Agriculture/Families, Youth and Communities), cnpp.usda.gov (Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion), and USDA’s Food and Nutrition service at fns.usda.gov, among others.

Clearly, there is nothing about eating that the U.S. government isn’t already telling us, so maybe that’s not the problem.

Mrs. Obama is a concerned mother, and she sets a strong example for those who ought to implement many of her proven and effective parenting strategies. I applaud the use of her platform to urge Americans to face the childhood-obesity issue as a way to do a better job of parenting, period.

That’s because it’s not only an obesity crisis we face; it’s a parenting crisis and a crisis of adulthood that has convinced too many Americans that our federal bureaucracy has an appropriate role in teaching us not just how to eat, but how to live.

Copyright 2010 Marybeth Hicks

Who knew you could burn so many extra calories at the local gym just being humiliated by the content of an ad for designer watches? Thanks to Italian fashion icons Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, we can all cringe with embarrassment while three anorexic-looking twentysomethings engage in the latest TV and advertising fad: Sexual threesomes.

You are probably wondering how sexual perversion and timepieces go together in a television commercial. Me, too.

Apparently the target audience for the brand D&G Time includes promiscuous young adults with upward of $650 to spend on a simple wristwatch. I guess when the watch is all you plan to have on at the end of the day, it had better be special.

According to their Web site, designers Dolce and Gabbana’s “creativity is the foundation of the new D&G Time commercial. … A luxurious period apartment in Paris is the set for a malicious mademoiselle who abandons herself to provocative games, ending in an upper-class menage a trois.” There’s little left to the imagination as the shirtless young men ravage the woman on a settee until “the risque situation is interrupted by her rigorous mother, shocked at the sight of such an impudent display.” (That’s her being shocked in the photo above).

She’s not the only one.

Impudent isn’t the word that came to mind when I was confronted with this unsavory vignette. Indecent is more like it. Incredulous, too. And also incensed.

This advertisement didn’t air after 10 p.m. or on an adult channel, as the Federal Communications Commission requires, but at 10 a.m. during morning chat shows.

According to Parents Television Council President Tim Winter, sexual threesomes now are the rage, in both advertisements and television programming. Earlier this year, PTC successfully campaigned to remove a New York City Calvin Klein billboard with such a depiction spanning the size of building, while the season premier of the teen drama “Gossip Girls” featured a two-episode theme around “three-ways.”

It seems our ability to be shocked now is so limited that advertisers and TV writers need to break through every last taboo in order to feel they’ve “pushed the envelope.” Not that they’ll get me to buy a stinking watch, but whatever.

We parents, who work hard to shelter our children from inappropriate media, often are dismayed that our efforts to protect our kids’ innocence are foiled by advertisers. Families watching wholesome shows or sporting events routinely are sabotaged by commercials such as D&G Time’s, with extreme adult content and sexual situations. By comparison, the embarrassing ads for sexual dysfunction remedies now seem tame.

Why aren’t advertisers subject to the same decency standards as other television programming? Why aren’t there rules to prohibit people like Dolce and Gabbana from polluting our public airways with sexually explicit and inappropriate images targeted to young, impressionable viewers? In fact, the D&G Time ad runs regularly on shows for teens such as the current Fox Broadcasting hit “Glee,” so obviously they’re trying to reach young people.

The answer is, advertisers are subject to those decency standards, but it’s up to the broadcasters – the folks who make money using our public airways – to enforce them by monitoring their advertisers and/or refusing to run offensive commercials. Once again, we need only to follow the money to realize that broadcasters have no incentive to refuse ads simply because they offend us, the viewing audience. They’ll run ads from anyone who will write them a check, and times being what they are, decency be damned.

“Broadcasters haven’t just lowered their standards, they’ve erased them,” Mr. Winter says.

Copyright 2010 Marybeth Hicks

All of these images are captioned, “Take time to be a dad today” and refer to the Web site www.fatherhood.gov.

Positive images of fathers engaging with their children are a welcome message in a culture where families struggle to remain intact and mothers generally bear responsibility for childrearing.

Then again, I’m certain that our Founders are gathered in some corner of heaven wringing their hands and wondering how we evolved into a government that teaches its citizens how fulfill our most basic human responsibilities.

What next? Take time to brush your teeth today? Take time to blow your nose today? Take time to visit the potty today?

There’s a reason they call it a “nanny state.” But sure enough, this ad campaign is a major component of the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse (NRFC) funded by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Family Assistance (OFA).

It “supports efforts to assist states and communities to promote and support responsible fatherhood and healthy marriage.”

Maybe I’m a cynic, but I think it’s ironic that a government that quite literally is bankrupting our children by incurring incomprehensible trillions of dollars in public debt purports to be concerned about quality parenthood.

No matter. We have plenty of money for this sort of campaign, because after all, it’s intended to go upstream to solve the root cause of other social problems. We know that single parents are at a measurable economic disadvantage as compared with those who are married, and that children who grow up in two-parent families enjoy countless educational, social and psychological benefits compared wih their single-parent peers.

Since the research clearly proves that America would be better off if more couples married and stayed in healthy marriages, and if more children were born to two married parents, and if more fathers were committed to both their wives and their children, it must be the job of the federal government to make it so.

It may be a worthy goal, but I have my doubts about the efficacy of having what is mostly a national advertising campaign to recommit our country to the worthy institution of marriage as a function of the federal bureaucracy.

A report available at www.acf.hhs.gov offers proof, by way of case studies, that federal dollars can and do save marriages and prepare couples for committed family life. The report showcases only “select” grantees with “promising” results, but hey, it’s close enough for government work.

We may be up to our eyeballs in debt, but at least we’re borrowing against our children’s future so that we can shore up their parents’ relationships.

The problem is, there is other research the government seems to ignore. For example, studies prove that men who are churchgoers are more likely to remain married and to be involved with their children than are unchurched men, and that couples whose relationships include a strong religious component are more likely to establish solid, traditional family homes.

Try as we might to avoid the truth, there’s no getting around the fact that family life that is centered on God is simply more stable and more successful.

Rather than spend our tax dollars on ad campaigns, our federal government might do more to eradicate threats to family well-being such as crippling unemployment, burdensome taxes, benefits for remaining unmarried and the scourge of pornography that rots men and marriages from within.

Not as much fun as an ad campaign, but perhaps more effective in the long term.



Copyright 2010 Marybeth Hicks

“Researchers shocked at kids’ online time,” says one. “U.S. kids using media almost 8 hours a day,” another screams. “New media use by children up by hours per week,” another story warns.

Essentially, the news coverage since last week’s unveiling of the updated research on children, teens and the media has focused on the sheer quantity of media consumed by America’s youths, and this is newsworthy, to be sure.

The very idea that children and teens are physically able to absorb more than 53 hours per week of media content — or seven hours and 38 minutes per day — astonished even the researchers, who had thought the previous average of six hours and 21 minutes per day calculated in 2004 represented the maximum amount of time that could be spent.

Even more mind-boggling, thanks to multitasking (using more than one kind of media at a time) children and teens “actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes … worth of media content into those 7½ hours,” the KFF study says. A note to the already astonished: The study didn’t include the time youngsters spend texting via cell phones. Add another 1½ hours per day.

As the mother of four, I wonder if the folks who are surprised by this research have children. It strikes me that only the childless would be shocked by the results. The rest of us spend much of our time saying things like, “Turn off the computer and go to bed.”

Those who wonder how it’s possible that a child can rack up more time using electronic media than most people spend earning a living are perhaps unaware that nearly 70 percent of American children have television sets in their bedrooms. As well, most youngsters personally own computers, gaming systems and, increasingly, mobile devices that provide full access to the Internet. Most important, for most children, there are no rules about when and how they may use their electronics.

According to the study, “Only about three in ten young people say they have rules about how much time they can spend watching TV (28%) or playing video games (30%), and 36% say the same about using the computer. But when parents do set limits, children spend less time with media: those with any media rules consume nearly 3 hours less media per day (2:52) than those with no rules.”

(Rule No. 1: No TV in the bedroom. Duh.)

It’s challenging not only to monitor the amount of time youngsters spend using media, but how they use it as well. According to OnlineFamily.Norton, a monitoring system offered by the Internet security company Symantec, 2009’s top five online search terms for children and teens were YouTube, Google, Facebook, “sex” and “porn.”

Clearly, some of those seven hours using media are unsupervised.

Common sense ought to tell us that there will be cultural repercussions for allowing our children to develop what can only be described as a media obsession.

For example, the KFF study reveals that roughly 75 percent of seventh- to 12th-graders have a profile on a social networking site. Meanwhile, Junior Achievement’s seventh annual teen ethics survey found that those social networking sites have become so central to teens’ lifestyles that more than half (58 percent) “[w]ould consider their ability to access them during working hours when weighing a job offer from a potential employer.”

Um, kids … Google “time theft” and see what you get.

It’s time for us to get over our shock that what is happening right before our eyes is, in fact, happening right before our eyes. Parents (read: we) must teach Generation M to incorporate media into a balanced, healthy, whole life.

As it is, 53 hours a week is just too much.

Copyright 2010 Marybeth Hicks

Perhaps the dark-brown muck oozing its way into the roots of my hair is causing me to doubt my credibility. Perhaps the aluminum foil squares hanging wildly in my face are cutting into my self-confidence.

Or maybe it’s the knowledge that one of the women whose conversation I am overhearing — and whom I dearly wish to admonish — will soon stand over me with a pair of scissors and my hairstyle in her hands.

Whatever the reason, I don’t comment. Instead, I pretend to read a magazine while listening to two women, both mothers of 12-year-old middle school students, lament the difficulties their daughters are having on Facebook.

“I just cannot believe the things these kids write on their walls,” one woman says.

“I know — and in their text messages too,” the other agrees.

Worried about their daughters’ emotional health and about the long-term consequences of rumors, gossip and high-tech teasing, their chatter continues for a solid 15 minutes. It’s a rambling, estrogen-infused diatribe about the indignities of the nasty texts and Facebook comments their daughters endure at the hands of other, meaner middle-schoolers, but also the great parenting strategies they use to make sure their girls do not respond in kind.

“I said, ‘You had better not do that.’”

Masterful. Really.

Oddly, though, at no point in their conversation does either gal question the wisdom or necessity of 12-year-olds participating in social networking sites or of owning and using cell phones to communicate with their 12-year-old posses.

I say “oddly” because this is the first thing that pops into my mind, and the very comment I’d love to blurt out. In fact, what I want to say is, “What hallucinogen are you women taking? Facebook was not created for immature, overemotional, pre-pubescent 12-year-olds.”

Or better, I might say, “Hey, ladies, did either of you read Facebook’s privacy policy that specifically prohibits the participation of children under age 13? Or any newspaper or Web site describing the dangers of children being wired and unsupervised? Because I hate to break it to you, but yours are.”

But again, I don’t say anything because it’s not polite. In fact, commenting on other people’s parenting is considered more than just intrusive or rude; it’s politically incorrect.

The Fort Hood shooting incident taught us the ramifications of political correctness and its impact on our military. For several years, Nidal Hasan made his jihadist political views known to his co-workers and superiors, but since it would be rude to point out the inherent anti-Americanism of his religious and political opinions, the folks who could impede him simply sat there with aluminum foil on their heads.

The result was a “politically correct” tragedy that has changed the lives of more than a dozen families.

Political correctness is wreaking havoc similarly on our nation’s children. The public schools are fraught with bold and bizarre ideas such as “gender education” and graphic sexuality classes that make the former notion of “health” class look like a reading primer from the 1950s.

Curriculum has been hijacked for political purposes, with revisionist history, “climate science” and PC literature at the forefront of the public schools’ outcome-based agenda. Now, the Obama administration is suggesting that children spend even more time in the classroom and less time at home with their parents.

Parents who speak out against the PC establishment that influences their children are labeled bigots or racists or homophobics or prudes, simply because they want to protect their childrens innocence and keep them from indoctrination at the tender age of 11, when, for example, fourth-graders in Massachusetts can be asked to draw pictures of the reproductive sex act.

It’s clear that remaining quiet isn’t serving our children’s interests. We need to worry less about how we’re perceived and more about the generation being raised by people who are politely keeping the truth to themselves.

Copyright 2010 Marybeth Hicks

My problem is that making resolutions for the New Year feels like entering a perpetual state of Lent, which is sometimes doable for 40 days, but for a lifetime is the definition of hell. Or failure. Or both.

Second, I don’t make resolutions because doing so strikes me as shallow and self-serving. Most resolutions tend to have at their core a benefit only for the one who is resolved. As such, these promises are easily broken, and thus, the probable cause of a spike in chip consumption only a month after the annual rise in sales of exercise apparel.

If the problem with New Year’s resolutions is that they are punishing promises meant to serve only the one who is resolved, then it might follow that resolutions could be more successfully maintained and more useful to society if they were the opposite. They should be easy to do and meant to improve the lot in life of others, not just ourselves.

In fact, I think our entire nation would benefit if American parents were to make five simple New Year’s resolutions. These resolutions are way easier than losing 10 pounds or drinking copious amounts of water each day or turning in library books by their due dates.

Why? Because we parents don’t actually have to do them; our children do.

You may want to get some scissors so you can cut this column out and tape it to the fridge. Ready?

Resolution No. 1: Institute an allowance system and make your kids live within their means. Hard for your kids? Perhaps. But the obvious benefits to you and our nation are irrefutable. Imagine if we raise a generation of people who have learned, from an early age, that when the money is gone, it’s gone. Can you say, “No more bailouts”?

Resolution No. 2: Require your kids to use proper manners. Can you imagine how pleasant your life would be if your children said things like “Please pass the gravy,” “May I have my allowance?” and “Thanks for the new sneakers, mom.” And think of a world in which our children have been taught to patiently wait their turns. Road rage? Forget about it.

Resolution No. 3: Take the TV out of your child’s bedroom. This is an easy one for you. Your child? He’ll get over it. And consider that the simple act of removing the TV will reduce the number of hours your child watches television, increase his sleep time, and even promote imaginative play and reading. It’s like magic, statistically speaking.

Resolution No. 4: Make your children eat dinner at home with you most days. Cheaper for you? Absolutely. And besides, with those improved manners from Resolution No. 2, the experience will be more pleasant than ever. Plus, research shows children who eat at home with their parents get better grades, score higher on standardized tests, use better vocabulary, eat more veggies and get more sleep than kids who don’t eat with mom or dad. Think of all the resolutions your child won’t have to make if you impose this one.

Resolution No. 5: Have more fun. When we encourage our children to enjoy their childhoods and find ways to have fun together, we remedy a whole lot of parenting mistakes which, according to experts, we’re perpetrating by the minute. Fun redeems a multitude of parenting sins.

Who ever thought the New Year could be so resolutely improved?



Copyright 2010 Marybeth Hicks

Perhaps it’s my casual attitude about weather generally, or maybe my cynicism about big science, but the revelations of data doctoring by climate scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit didn’t come as a surprise to me.

With so much at stake, one must only follow the massive money and political power trails to assume there’s more to this issue than an uptick in the temperature. Climate change is the issue through which citizens of the U.S. could be forced to subject our Constitution and ourselves to the sovereignty of a worldwide governing body. The ramifications for our liberty and lifestyles of an international treaty on climate change are truly frightening – much more so than melting ice caps.

So while I wasn’t shocked to learn that the leaders in the epic “Chicken Little” fable better known as global warming have, for some years, compromised the scientific veracity of their research to uphold their dubious and dire claims, it occurred to me upon learning about “climategate” that once again our children are left holding the bag.

Those of us raising families know too well the drumbeat of fear that is used to manipulate our children into serfs for the environmental left. As a parent, it’s taken a concerted effort to counter the onslaught of political propaganda that passes for the science curriculum, not only to help my children learn the truth, but to quell the anxiety it’s meant to stir up.

I can’t count the number of dinner-table conversations we’ve devoted to eye-opening information such as the prediction some 30 years ago of an impending ice age, or that the Earth’s cycles of warming and cooling happen naturally, or that there is a corresponding relationship between Al Gore’s Oscar award and Al Gore’s bank account.

It is disheartening to realize that the nation’s science curriculum has been hijacked by environmentalism. Is it any wonder that the United States ranks near the bottom of industrialized countries in assessments of science students, or that the National Center for Education Statistics finds our high school seniors scoring lower in science in 2007 than in 2000? It seems during those seven years that they didn’t learn much hard science, but I’m betting the vast majority wrote essays on corporate America’s responsibility for climate change.

We parents can attest to the trend in American classrooms toward ecology and away from real Earth science, as well as the neglect of life and physical sciences. For example, in the eighth grade, my son was forced to sit through Mr. Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” presented as fact, long after the movie’s junk science had been debunked. (No alternative points of view were ever presented in the classroom, so once again we turned over our dinnertime to a conversation about accuracy in scientific research.)

To be sure, America’s colleges and universities are churning out teachers well versed in the “science-lite” of ecology and environmental education. Funded with our tax dollars through the likes of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Education, the teaching establishment is a willing partner in the environmental left’s political agenda.

But the sad truth is our children have been shortchanged because they are less scientifically proficient than their counterparts around the world. Recycling projects and posters about polar bears and dioramas of rain forests (formerly known as jungles) aren’t science.

They’re activist lessons for a generation that is not learning how to form and test hypotheses and, worse, does not even realize that skepticism is the foundation of real scientific discovery.

Copyright 2009 Marybeth Hicks

Like millions of Americans, Mrs. Palin intrigues me, not because I’m a huge fan or a huge skeptic, but because despite mountains of media content produced about her, she remains a mystery.

Those who want the stereotyped, “Saturday Night Live” image of Mrs. Palin to hold up as fact argue that the mainstream media has offered an accurate picture of the woman and that picture is “I can see Russia from my house.”

Newsweek this week affirmed this absurd image by using on its cover a photograph from a Runner’s World profile of Mrs. Palin. In such a context, the magazine intentionally sought to affirm David Letterman’s crude “slutty flight attendant” comment.

The obvious conclusion based on these media portrayals is that Mrs. Palin is too uninformed and unintelligent for national leadership. Unfortunately for Palin haters, such a conclusion simply flies in the face of the principles of media literacy.

Media literacy is the ability to assess and evaluate media content and understand its underlying messages in the full awareness that someone owns it, produced it and is using it to promote a particular point of view.

This idea isn’t very complicated. In fact, the Center for Media Literacy (CML) has long advocated that parents teach their children the five basic principles that must be applied when evaluating media content: Media messages are constructed; they contain embedded values and points of view; they use staging to make a metaphorical point; they are interpreted based on a person’s life experience; and they’re driven by profit and political motives.

For years, I’ve followed CML’s advice and taught my children these principles in order to help them understand why certain toys don’t perform as advertised, why a pair of basketball shoes named for an NBA star won’t improve your game, and why we don’t permit them to watch certain TV shows that undermine our values.

Adults need to develop media literacy skills as well, because we depend on the media to bring us information that serves as the basis for our decision-making. In the political arena, our ability to dissect media presentations of people and issues is imperative if we’re to make reasoned choices about candidates and their policies.

This brings me to Oprah’s Monday interview with Mrs. Palin. Clearly, Mrs. Palin chose “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in an effort to reach its strong demographic and thereby promote her book. Even folks like me who never watch the show tuned in to see what we could learn.

For Miss Winfrey’s part, it seemed the talk-show queen could not help but be as intrigued by the former governor as am I. She may have assumed that the stereotype would be true, but it sure looked as though she was face to face with a formidable woman who wasn’t anything like the lightweight the mainstream media would have us believe her to be.

Importantly, when Barack Obama appeared on Oprah’s set, they shared a love seat. Oprah sat next to the would-be candidate with an arm outstretched in an open and affirming posture. Conversely, the staging for Mrs. Palin’s appearance was less like a living room, more like a hotel lobby, and not a very inviting one.

But while Oprah didn’t do anything that could be interpreted as supportive – no comfy couch or “girlfriend” moments – she didn’t necessarily undermine Mrs. Palin either.

Leaving me … still curious.

If the appearance was meant to encourage sales of Mrs. Palin’s book, it worked. I’m going shopping. I hope Mrs. Palin will do what the media has not yet done for me – finally sheds some light on who she is and what sort of leader she might be.

Copyright 2009 Marybeth Hicks

“Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2″ from video game publisher Activision is predicted to be the highest grossing first-day release in the entertainment industry. It’s supposed to make more than any book, movie, DVD or video game ever has made on its initial release, including all of the “Harry Potter” iterations.

We ought not be surprised, but we ought to be concerned. “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2″ is another immersive first-person game offering players the chance to vicariously participate in acts of violence for the sole purpose of … entertainment.

Billed as an “emotional journey” into the darkest corners of human behavior, the game includes a terrorist scene that is expected to incite controversy (but no doubt will also spark sales). In its effort to push the envelope, the game incorporates actions that generally are considered taboo for video games.

Hmmmm. This would mean the brutal killings and criminal behavior in “Grand Theft Auto IV,” the previous record-holder for first day video game sales, were not so bad. I guess if the person you pretend to kill is as evil as your character, it’s OK.

On a day when headlines use words such as “horrific” and “heinous” and “unthinkable” to describe the senseless acts of violence that really happen from day to day, week to week, it seems ridiculous to question the root of violence in our culture.

Violence is entertaining. We do it for fun.

Defenders of games such as “Call of Duty” (note the patriotic-sounding title), “Grand Theft Auto” and others first point to the “mature” rating for these games and claim they do not incite adult players to greater violence. If you’re older than 17, they say, you’re not likely to be influenced by the behaviors in which you engage in the virtual world.

But the fact is young people — specifically young men and boys — whose behavior is known to be influenced by extreme violence in video games, are playing these games.

In her book “Watch it! What Parents Need to Know to Raise Media-Smart Kids” released earlier this year, Northern Illinois University professor Mary Larson notes that “More than 3,500 scientific studies have looked at the relationship between media violence and violent behavior. Only 18 of those studies failed to find a relationship between the two.”

Yet all across America, midnight sales events at big box stores such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart celebrated the release of a game that promotes the darkest, most disturbing fantasies within the human heart.

Once again, we don’t want to see the cultural connection between a society that glorifies violence and offers it up for entertainment purposes, but then dismisses the possibility that we are breeding our youth to exhibit “unthinkable” and “heinous” behaviors.

America’s children are surrounded by senseless violence on TV, in movies and worst of all, in video games that enable them a realistic experience of “the thrill of the kill.” It’s not maturity that’s needed to play these games. It’s maturity that rejects them as barbaric and harmful to the psyche of anyone who would play them.


Copyright 2009 Marybeth Hicks

What with the perverse, modern-day interpretations of our constitutional guarantee of expression, one can only imagine the damages he will try to collect for being held in contempt of court simply because he flipped off the judge.

For now, Mr. Kellett sits in a McHenry County, Ill., jail, where one might hope he is learning a hard – if not overdue – lesson on the importance of civility. Or not.

Mr. Kellett was cited for contempt over the weekend during his preliminary hearing for a burglary charge. Prosecutors say he broke into the home of an acquaintance and tried to bash his friend over the head with a flashlight.

The guy sounds like a gem so far, which is what makes the vulgar gesture thing such a surprise.

Judge G. Martin Zopp ignored one profanity on the part of the accused, who used profanity to amplify his answer when asked whether he had legal counsel. Apparently “no” was not sufficient to explain his lack of an attorney; therefore Mr. Kellett employed an all-purpose modifier.

But then, the defendant went too far. Asked to raise his right hand to be sworn, Mr. Kellett instead raised his middle finger. I suppose it’s possible he misunderstood what it means to “swear in” a defendant, but more likely, he was “sticking it to the man.”

Turns out “the man” was Assistant State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally, who asked Judge Zopp to find Mr. Kellett in direct criminal contempt for his rude and disrespectful action.

Obviously, Mr. Kellett is a punk, but that’s not the point. Unfortunately, his action is only a symptom of the larger societal issue of rampant incivility and the all-too-common use of profanity and vulgarity in public.

It would be easy to make the media the scapegoat for this cultural trend, and in fact, television in particular has helped eliminate the idea of “polite company” in which one would avoid certain words or phrases. From “Family Guy” to “Cops,” MTV to “Saturday Night Live,” profanity is only tacitly “bleeped” out for the sake of propriety, and more often these days, it is not.

Then again, our public officials and pop-culture icons also promote the use of vulgarity in public. Members of Congress and the executive branch have now famously used the same riveting vocabulary word as this 24-year-old suspect, Ivy League pedigree notwithstanding.

Still, we might hope the hallowed halls of justice echo the civil tones of a civilized people, but that’s sadly not the case. Thanks to our overly casual culture, it’s typical for local jurisdictions to post guidelines on their Web sites with such basic requests as “shoes must be worn” and “no bare midriffs” in court. Perhaps McHenry County will now post guidelines on how to respectfully raise one’s hand to be sworn in.

We ought not to need a laundry list of guidelines to tell folks how to behave civilly. From the U.S. Capitol to the school playground, the rules of civility already are well-known and need only be honored in order for American society to be lifted up.

Bravo to Mr. Kenneally and Judge Zopp for using Mr. Kellett’s disgraceful behavior as an example of what they will not tolerate in court.

Now let’s hope someone doesn’t win this punk a chunky settlement on the grounds he was only expressing his opinion about being arrested on charges of ripping off a friend.



Copyright 2009 Marybeth Hicks

CCFC has for years sought to reveal the truth about so-called educational videos designed ostensibly to increase the brainpower of growing babies. Studies show no measurable gains in intelligence or verbal skills associated with baby videos. In fact, researchers at the University of Washington found that for every hour per day of screen viewing by infants aged 8 to 16 months, a measurable decrease occurs in communicative development.

In 2006, CCFC filed a Federal Trade Commission complaint against Baby Einstein and brand owner Disney, charging that the company’s marketing misled parents into thinking the videos could positively impact development and learning.

At that time, Disney stopped claiming that Baby Einstein videos were educational (in so many words). But it didn’t admit outright that it was selling a product under false pretenses.

CCFC kept up the pressure, and last week, Disney announced it would refund buyers for up to four Baby Einstein videos – not that there,s anything wrong with them, mind you, but just in case some folks mistakenly thought the product would make their babies smarter. The company says this is Disney,s standard quality guarantee.

There are a few lessons to be learned from Disney’s non-admission of false advertising. “Caveat emptor” is one. A savvy consumer – or just a reasonably rational parent – ought to wonder whether it,s realistic to think plopping a baby in front of a video screen can advance his or her intelligence.

“Be careful what you wish for” is another possible lesson, since, according to biographers, Albert Einstein enjoyed a normal childhood, “except that to his family’s irritation, he learnt to speak at a late age.”

But perhaps the most crucial lesson for parents is to remember that while babies don,t come with instructions, as oft noted at baby showers, we are blessed with a certain intuitive facility to care for them. And it turns out that the thing that comes most naturally – sitting on the floor, playing, singing and cooing – are the things that actually do advance the cognitive development of babies.

It might seem as though the Baby Einstein (and Baby Mozart and Baby Galileo) concept was meant to play into the competitive parenting instincts of those who would pay for videos today, Harvard tuition tomorrow.

According to Josh Golin of the CCFC, parents of lower socioeconomic strata have been equally vulnerable to the marketing tactics for baby videos on the fear that they don,t have what their babies need to be smart. “These videos have appealed to high-end consumers, yes, but also to lower-end consumers who simply want help,” he says.

Sadly, those folks only wasted their hard-earned dollars. But at least now they can get some of that money back, better to spend it on strategies that work, such as Jen Singer’s “Stop Second-Guessing Yourself” guides to parenting.

Says Mrs. Singer, “The recent blow to the Disney Corporation may be the beginning of the end of 21st-century competitive parenting. Perhaps now parents will start to trust their guts more, thereby swinging the pendulum back toward more sensible, confident parenting.”

Sensible and confident parents understand that babies don’t need animated “video board books” such as Baby Einstein. They need the animated countenance of a loving mom or dad, vibrantly engaged in the delightful work of entertaining, exciting and enlightening their infants.

“There’s no big secret to helping our infants to grow and learn, but there,s no shortcut either,” Mrs. Singer says. “You simply have to get down on the floor and play with them. But how hard is that?”



Copyright 2009 Marybeth Hicks

The honorarium for this appearance was to be $20,000. My children thought this was a big pile of money, but that’s before any of them enrolled in college. They know better now.

I considered “Wife Swap” for all of about four seconds before responding “thanks, but no thanks” to the producer who contacted me. That was all the time it took for me to envision my husband in the vestibule at church explaining to our pastor who the strange woman was next to him, and how the words “Wife Swap” could describe a TV show that was both wholesome and appropriate for audiences of all ages.

When my children asked how I could refuse such easy money, my answer was simple: “There’s not enough money in the world to compensate me for the loss of privacy and dignity of a TV reality show, not to mention the exploitation of my family.”

“But you could be famous,” one of them pointed out.

“I may as well sell my soul.”

They must have heard this as a firm “no” because they never asked about it again.

Sadly, Richard and Mayumi Heene weren’t so reticent to join the ranks of the exploited, nor to employ their children in their get-rich-and-famous-quick schemes.

Veterans of the show “Wife Swap,” the Heenes desired a reality series of their own. In an effort to secure such an opportunity, it appears last week the couple perpetrated a huge hoax on America through a willing news media.

On the chance you are among those productive citizens who work all day rather than watch TV news, you may have missed the story. The Heenes built an experimental “flying saucer” – really a makeshift hot-air balloon – that “accidentally” flew away, “possibly” with their 6-year-old son Falcon on board. A 911 call initiated a search for the craft, which when found, was empty of young Falcon. An even more serious situation seemed to have emerged with the possibility that the child had fallen out of the craft.

After hours of emotional TV coverage, the boy was “found” at home. On the obligatory live CNN interview, he alone spoke the truth about the day’s events when he asked his father, “I thought we did it for the TV show?”

Now the parents will be charged with a host of crimes, from conspiracy to contributing to the delinquency of a minor, though sadly, there is no law on the books against seeking fame without genuine talent. Heaven knows the jails would overflow if such a statute existed.

If the Heenes weren’t such comic figures (an experimental flying saucer?), their stunt could serve an instructive purpose, for certainly their fame obsession is an example of the vapid state of American ambition.

Celebrity now defines success in our culture. One needn’t make any real contribution to society. Just land on TV – preferably on a show where you get your own theme song – and in the time it takes to say, “I’m Jon Gosslin’s agent” you, too, can be among the rich and famous.

Or infamous.

Whatever.

We ought to be worried about such shallow values because studies now prove American middle schoolers would rather be famous than intelligent.

That’s reality, folks, and it’s not made for TV.



Copyright 2009 Marybeth Hicks

To wit: A Georgia school’s ban against religious messages on high school cheerleader banners. For at least five years, the Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe cheerleaders have held up large paper posters through which the football team crashes to enter the field at the start of their Friday night battles. The purpose is motivational, and no one has ever complained that the banners were inappropriately religious.

In fact, the community loves them.

But a parent’s notification to the school district that such posters violate federal law has forced the cheerleaders to cease using motivational phrases from the New Testament, such as “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me in Christ Jesus.”

The cynic in me assumed, at first blush, that the parent probably has a daughter who was cut from the cheerleader squad. But then I recalled that this case takes place in Georgia, not Texas. And apparently the mother who brought the issue to light has only sons. Presumably they didn’t want to be cheerleaders.

Thanks to this woman’s helpful notification (she insists she didn’t “complain”), the cheerleaders at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe now may hold up signs with rousing rallies to victory such as “This is Big Red Country.”

How long will it be until a parent of Chinese ancestry complains that the “Big Red” reference is offensive?

More to the point, how long will it be until common sense prevails with respect to religion and free speech?

Fearing an expensive lawsuit, the superintendent of Catoosa County Public Schools declared the inspirational signs represent a violation of the law simply because they were held by uniformed cheerleaders on a school football field. Nevermind that the cheer team paid for the signs themselves, and that they were not asked by the school to paint and hold the signs; they did so of their own volition.

The logic goes, while wearing school cheer uniforms, the students are “school representatives,” and by extension, they are “the government.”

That’s a stretch.

As an alternative, and in an effort to protect the free speech rights of the students, the school district established a “free speech zone” in front of the school where the cheerleaders and others may post banners of their choosing. It’s about half a football field away from the game.

No doubt all of the students get the subtle distinction that the posters, when paid for, painted and held by the cheerleaders, constitute religious oppression, but when planted on the front lawn of the school, are only free speech.

Meanwhile, one of the pillars of American freedom crumbles in a heap of tortured semantics.

In 1798, John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” I don’t doubt that he would be proud of the young people who wanted to incorporate their religious beliefs as motivational and inspirational messages for their peers. That was the whole point of protecting religious liberty.

Thanks to silly rulings like this one, we’re teaching our children an entirely backward interpretation of separation of church and state. Sadly, they may grow up believing that America was meant to be religion-free, and not freely religious.

Then again, ever since the ban on cheerleader-sponsored religious posters, the stands apparently have been filled with students holding hand-painted Bible verses to motivate their team. So maybe this ruling has been a boost to religious liberty after all.

Copyright 2009 Marybeth Hicks

Its owner stood in the airline-ticketing queue clutching an American Girl doll while all around her, family members hugged and cried.

It didn’t take long to figure out what was happening; the little girl’s family was moving from Michigan to Hawaii, where they hoped to find work. The ambivalence on her face seemed to say this move wasn’t a happy family adventure.

I swallowed hard to fight my tears as I watched two middle-aged sisters hold each other in a painful embrace, and then hug each other’s children. Their elderly father wiped his tears as he kissed his daughter, shook the hand of his son-in-law, and then said goodbye to his grandchildren.

Slowly, reluctantly, they separated, leaving some of them to embark on an uncertain journey and the rest to resume their lives, unchanged, but emptier.

With the remarkable strength that women often muster, that grown sister passed her sleeve across her face to dry her tears, then flipped the switch to be a wife and mother nurturing her family through a difficult moment. “You guys OK?” she asked.

But it was clear from where I was standing that she was not OK. Her heart was breaking.

Such is the reality of out-migration.

Blogging on the Midwest economy for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Bill Testa says, “Given the dismal national unemployment picture, the state of worker dislocation in Michigan and other Midwest automotive communities may not be fully appreciated. But unemployment in these communities is significantly worse than national averages. While the national unemployment rate has just now reached 9.7 percent, Michigan’s unemployment rate is now at 15.2 percent and has exceeded 10 percent since December of last year.”

It’s troubling enough to consider the impact of that level of unemployment on communities and, ultimately, on an entire state. But the true cost of this recession can’t be measured in statistics on jobs or home foreclosures or failed businesses.

It has to be measured in human terms – in families who resort to relocating in order to make a living and put food on the table, extended families who give up the support and comfort of being near one another in order to find work.

It’s birthdays and holidays spent apart, hospital stays without a visit, sporting events and graduations without proud family members in the stands.

Unfortunately, these sacrifices take an even greater toll on children, for whom stability and routine are often the keys to surviving a stressful economic cycle.

Experts say that when times are tough it’s better for kids to stay put, if at all possible, where aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, teachers and coaches can help maintain a sense of security. But in Michigan, it’s increasingly difficult, if not downright impossible, to hold onto the lifestyle that’s best for families and children.

On Saturday at the airport, one little girl held onto her doll and her bear and her mom’s hand instead.

Sometimes the line at the ticket counter is long enough so you can learn the whole story. Then again, sometimes it’s just enough to leave you asking questions.

As I wandered away from the counter, I found myself wondering what will become of them. Will they find work? Do they have a place to live? Is there anyone waiting at the airport on the other end?

Is this adventure, borne of adversity, holding out the only hope they can find?

Copyright 2009 Marybeth Hicks

Summing up: People are rude.

The flurry of incivility that lately has found its way to Youtube’s “most viewed” list ought to make us worry about the messages our children are getting, given that Youtube is the most popular Web site for children 8 to 18. It’s time to turn our kitchen tables into learning labs and take advantage of this week’s teachable moments.

To review:

• Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican, now famous for shouting “You lie!” during President Obama’s speech to Congress.

• Serena Williams’ profanity-laced tirade at a line judge, as well as Roger Federer’s snarky back talk to an umpire, both during the U.S. Open Tennis Championships.

• Kanye West’s interruption of Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech during the MTV Video Music Awards, in which he decries the loss of the award by competitor Beyonce Knowles.

• Finally, Mr. Obama’s supposedly off-the-record comment calling Mr. West a “jackass” for his MTV antics. (More bad manners: ABC News reporter Terrence Moran conveying this indiscreet comment by way of a Twitter post to his 1-million-plus followers.)

There are enough bad examples here to fill a semester in the kitchen, starting with: Incivility begets incivility. A week ago, while accepting the apology of Mr. Wilson, Mr. Obama seemed to wish for a higher standard of behavior among citizens. In the span of six days, he apparently called someone else a jackass. (Remember that the practice of good manners doesn’t consider the truth of such a statement, just the propriety of speaking it aloud.)

To put a fine point on the lessons we might consider, I consulted an expert, P.M. Forni, a respected professor of romance languages and literature at Johns Hopkins University and also one of the nation’s pre-eminent authorities on civility, having written two best-selling books on the subject. (The paperback version of his second book, “The Civility Solution: What to Do When People Are Rude” was released this month from Macmillan.)

How would an expert such as Mr. Forni use the current crop of banalities to offset the underlying lack of civility they represent?

“Parents must transform these bad examples into assets as they use these instances to teach their children. We must explore how these actions would make us feel, and then find comparable examples in our daily lives that children can identify with,” Mr. Forni says.

Which is to say, imagine how Miss Swift felt when her big moment was stolen by a selfish, thoughtless buffoon. Now imagine how your brother feels when he’s telling the family about his day, and you interrupt and make yourself the center of attention. “The basis of civility is to realize that we all bruise, inside and out. Mannerly behavior is that which protects the feelings of others.”

But what is the skill that promotes mannerly behavior? “Self-restraint,” says Mr. Forni.

“We must instill self-restraint in our children. We do much to instill self-esteem in our children, but not much to reinforce self-restraint.” It was self-restraint that was lacking in every example of public incivility that unfolded during the past week.

Here’s another lesson suggested by Mr. Forni: We must teach our children that this sort of behavior is wrong. “We have to make clear to children that those gestures in which high-profile people find themselves is wrong … they did something wrong, something unfair to another person.

“Our culture of extreme informality makes us vulnerable to crossing into incivility,” Mr. Forni says.

Imagine if we simply resurrected the notion that it’s wrong to treat people badly, and that self-restraint and a more formal standard of behavior are ways to avoid such actions. We’d be living in a much more civilized culture.

But then what would we watch on Youtube?

Copyright 2009 Marybeth Hicks

Here was the question: Several mothers of girls ages 10 to 12 want to know whether they should allow their daughters to buy instrumental versions of two currently popular – though extremely inappropriate – songs, “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga, and “Low” by Flo Rida featuring T-Pain.

I know what you’re thinking. Are those the names of singers or brands of toothache remedies?

Lady Gaga is the stage name of one Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, who, according to Wikipedia, is a Catholic school graduate and erstwhile student at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Flo Rida is a hip-hop, R&B and rap singer from Florida (get it?), known also by his given name, Tramar Dillard, while T-Pain is actually Faheem Rasheed Najm, a hip-hop star whose moniker is a nickname for a nickname – Tallahassee Pain, which Wikipedia says commemorates the artist’s “hardships while living there.”

Both of the songs in question include heavy-duty sexual slang, orgylike dance rhythms, and degrading references to sex acts and money, exchanged casually on dance floors. As you can imagine, the music videos for these songs are equally pornographic.

The moms all agree that the lyrics of the songs, which their daughters already have heard, are unacceptable, but “the girls have indicated that they like the catchy beat to the songs rather than the words.”

The parenting dilemma: Should the moms A. print out the (pornographic) lyrics of these songs and review them with the girls to persuade them that they are inappropriate; or B. allow the girls to download instrumental versions as a way to protect the girls from the racy themes contained therein, despite the fact that they already know enough of the lyrics to sing along?

How about option C: “aaaaaarrrrrrrggggggggg” all in caps.

For once I might side with our deranged, obscene, sex-obsessed, hip-hop culture. Why not? At least Lady Gaga and Flo Rida are true to their convictions.

America’s parents, on the other hand, need professional advice about whether to safeguard their children from influences they already deem grossly inappropriate and potentially destructive. Nevermind that research proves that adolescents who listen to degrading sexual lyrics engage in more and earlier sexual behaviors than those who do not; the girls like the “catchy beat.” Isn’t that what matters most?

In my mind, the fact that hip-hop artists are able to disguise sexual perversion with a catchy beat isn’t remarkable or even noteworthy.

What is noteworthy is that researchers have proved beyond doubt the ways in which our crass and vulgar culture damages our children, and common sense tells us we ought not expose them to media that exploits their innocence. Yet, for reasons I don’t understand, parents are unwilling or unable to simply say to their children, “My dears, those songs – with or without lyrics – aren’t good enough for you. Let’s find something better.”

When it comes to media generally, and music in particular, most parents I know say they “choose their battles.” After all, doesn’t every generation push the envelope of propriety to make its mark on the culture? “Remember Elvis’ pelvis,” folks say.

Maybe. But in today’s culture war for the hearts and minds of our children, I think we’re choosing too few battles. It’s time for parents to stop tapping our toes and instead fight the catchy beat that is stealing an innocent childhood from an entire generation.



Copyright 2009 Marybeth Hicks

Nope. Not kidding.

According to news reports, students in the Indian Creek High School marching band were permitted by director Donald Llewellyn to choose the music for this year’s halftime show.

Llewellyn may not have given his students clear parameters with respect to their choices. They picked popular songs from their iPod playlists – songs their peers sitting in the stands would recognize and enjoy.

The students chose “Gives You Hell” by the All American Rejects, “If You Seek Amy” by Britney Spears and “Don’t Trust Me” by 3OH!3.

Earlier this year when it was released, the Spears song made headlines because of its sly lyrical trick. In the chorus where the song title is sung, it’s meant to sound as if Ms. Spears spells out the f-word. The tune by 3OH!3 includes the f-word as an adjective, as well as a scathing reference to Helen Keller and her deaf/mute disability.

Now, here’s an important juncture in this story. It seems like most adults in a position of authority over a large group of high school students would execute some due diligence to be sure that the songs the students wanted to play were acceptable and appropriate. Then, finding that the original versions of these songs were laced with profanity and offensive themes, would respond, “Nice try guys. We’re a high school band. We don’t play stuff like this.”

Instead, Mr. Llewellyn and his staff choreographed an elaborate, nine-minute half-time show featuring precision marching, hip dance moves, and even a vocal rendition of the offensive Helen Keller chorus:

“Shush girl, shut your lips,
Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips.”

The show was performed at football games before someone complained to Indian Creek Schools Superintendent Jene Watson. Mr. Watson, asserting the wisdom and authority missing earlier in the chain of events, declared two of the band’s songs unacceptable and banned them from the show.

You might think his decision was supported throughout this small, suburban community. After all, he merely decreed that the band must restrict its choices to the millions and millions of pieces of composed music whose original lyrics did not include the few vocabulary words universally considered offensive. And to be sure, many parents, including some band parents, are relieved that the songs were removed from the band’s halftime repertoire.

But wouldn’t you know, some parents are upset. They believe their children’s freedom of speech is being suppressed and further, that since the band doesn’t sing all the lyrics, the songs are fine.  They’re going to the school board in October to fight for their children’s right to… (now hum “Stars and Stripes Forever”) …play vulgar songs at halftime.

Somewhere under an oak tree at Washington’s Congressional Cemetery, John Philip Sousa rolls in his grave.

Here’s the kicker: The Indian Creek band has a web site for band members, parents and fans (www.ichsband.com), where this message is posted under the heading “Student Attitudes:”

“We have had some problems with students on the buses to games and in the stands at the games.  Language and attitude are the problems facing directors and chaperones. Please talk to your student and let them know that this is very disrespectful to the other band members, to Mr. [Llew] and Mr. Howell, and the volunteers who give their time to assist the band.  Please stress to your student the benefits of being respectful.”

Interesting. Perhaps this might not be an issue if they were taught to extend that same respect to everyone, including their audiences, and even the late Helen Keller.

Copyright 2009 Marybeth Hicks

As we stroll through the neighborhood, my husband, our four children and I take turns confiding our intentions for the coming school year. By announcing our aspirations, we turn our dreams into goals, our hopes into plans. But the exercise also reminds us we’re not alone in our efforts – we have family cheering us on and faith to support us.

Along the way, the encouragement and advice we give to our kids is not unlike the message President Obama delivered in his address to schoolchildren this week.

Make goals for yourself and announce them to others so you’ll be accountable. Work hard. Take responsibility for your success. Get help when you need it.

Since the President’s message was so similar to the advice we give our own children, why did it seem inappropriate to me?

It’s entirely fitting for schools to air presidential addresses. I certainly don’t object when it happens in the event of a national emergency such as 9/11, or during an historic occasion such as an inauguration.

Is it just that I’m cynical because I disagree with the President’s politics? Or because the Department of Education’s first pass at supporting materials for teachers was found to be overtly partisan and subsequently were changed?

Those who favor the president’s speech to schoolchildren point to previous addresses by George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan as proof that a precedent has already been set for such an address.

I don’t want to be labeled a hypocrite, and I’m careful not to criticize President Obama for things that would not bother me in a conservative leader. So I went back and read those speeches by Presidents Bush and Reagan and realized why President Obama’s talk bothers me.

George H.W. Bush encouraged students to take greater interest in science and math. He used the occasion of a space launch to focus on the sciences at a time when it had been well established that US students paled in comparison to others around in the world in this essential discipline. The speech also pointed to several national education goals that had been adopted by the bi-partisan Governor’s Association together with the Department of Education. (Even still, then-Speaker of the House Richard Gephardt said, “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students.”)

Ronald Reagan’s speech was something else entirely. It was a primer on American political theory. He focused on the Founders and on our Constitutional Republic, and he talked about how our form of government and the lifestyle we enjoy because of it are the envy of the world.

Neither Presidents Bush nor Reagan inserted themselves into the personal lives of their audiences, but instead asked schoolchildren to insert themselves into the public life of our nation. (Sounds a lot like, “Ask not what your country can do for you…”, yes?)

On the other hand, President Obama’s talk was deeply personal – both about himself and his audience. He told the children about his experiences as a student and mentioned his family circumstances as a special challenge, and he spoke to kids about setting goals for themselves, establishing aspirations in life, and living up to their own potential and to the expectations of others.

Supporters of Mr. Obama’s address note that too many kids in America don’t get the kind of strong, positive message from their own parents that the president delivered. I agree, and it’s too bad. I wish more parents would help their children set and reach their goals.

But the President of the United States is not our nation’s “First Father.” His constitutionally mandated role is not to be an uber-parent, offering sage advice on personal behavior for school kids via televised lectures. Even if the message is a positive one, the very fact that he delivered it is intrusive and assumptive.

If we accept this display of non-partisan “presidential parenting,” we’re tacitly acknowledging that the government of the United States of America has an appropriate role to play in raising our children. Once we allow this, it isn’t a very big leap to a department of children and families, just like the ministry in Britain that imposes government-sanctioned advice through government schools and health clinics, much of which undermines parental authority.

To be sure, the president gave a great talk. It’s one that parents — not our president — ought to deliver.



Copyright 2009 Marybeth Hicks

“Hmmm. Obviously you’ve thought this through, but do you really think someone will ask?”

“I doubt it,” Amy says. “I just want to be ready.”

Such are the worries of a seventh-grade girl. Never mind that her eyes can light up a room, sans mascara. The idea that others will be in full face-paint and she will look different for lack of lip gloss obviously haunts her.

Ah, seventh grade. The year I have dubbed, “The line in the sand.”

Counting three previous years as a parent and my own harrowing stint as a 12-year-old, this will be my fifth time through this torturous preteen minefield.

Seventh grade — the year that separates the fast crowd from the late bloomers, the MTV watchers from the Nick at Nite enthusiasts, the Facebookers from the library bookers. In the seventh grade, you discover quickly, if you didn’t already know, whether you are cool or uncool and once classified, it’s a fact of your young life.

Child development experts say this period of early adolescence is the time when tweens start “individuating.”

I haven’t noticed that. I think it’s the time when kids become sheep, following the flock to Abercrombie & Fitch for skimpy but expensive clothing that makes them look like Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders.

In middle school, cool is so superficial and trite as to be downright boring (ever read a preteen’s text messages?). For this reason, at our house we’ve decided “geeky” is the new cool. This way, we’re always cutting edge.

If the burning need to be cool (and thus, popular) were confined to early adolescence, this phase in the life cycle of the person might be amusing. But in America, the quest to be cool now permeates every facet of our culture, from music and art to sports and academia, even to politics and religion. And in America, there’s no correlation between what’s cool and what’s best.

To wit: Our ubercool 44th president, who, while fly fishing last month in Montana, insisted that his river guide call him Barack. After all, he was just a regular guy, doing what regular guys do — fishing. It was way cooler to be Barack-on-a-day-off-from-the-presidency than to demonstrate the respect for the office that prompts one and all to refer to our presidents as “Mr. President.”

Reminds me of the parents who insist that their children’s friends call them by their first names on the grounds that its uncool to be “Mr.” or “Mrs.” Invariably, these are the so-called grown-ups who turn a blind eye to teenage partying and view themselves as responsible adults just because they collect the car keys at the door.

In her seminal book, “The Death of the Grown-Up,” author and columnist Diana West says this cultural quest to be cool is rooted in a startling, even dangerous, unwillingness to grow up. As a society, Miss West says, we’re in a state of arrested development that already is undermining our way of life. We’re a generation of perpetual children who can’t say no, can’t tell right from wrong, and doesn’t want to be confronted with our own societal immaturity.

This may be the last year I endure the trials of the seventh grade, but sadly, the childish desire for constant affirmation and the need to conform for the sake of popularity remain guiding behavioral standards in our culture.

An uncool fact of American life, indeed.



Copyright 2009 Marybeth Hicks

As if there isn’t enough political news to elevate our national blood pressure, a new study released this week in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine says the blood pressure levels of America’s children are elevated thanks to – drum roll, because you’re going to be shocked by this – TV and screen time.

Just when you thought it was safe to park your child in front of a television set for six or eight hours on end to watch every manner of questionable – even depraved – human behavior (MTV’s “Real World: Cancun,” anyone?), it turns out it’s not just media content that endangers child health but the very act of consuming media.

Experts from several Midwestern research universities studied children ages 3 to 8 who spent five hours per day in various modes of inactivity. They controlled for physical composition and other health factors, and what they found is that 1.5 hours a day in front of the TV and/or playing video games actually elevates kids’ blood pressure, regardless of whether children are overweight.

Proving, perhaps, that children instinctively know bad media when they see it, though the research didn’t confirm this as fact.

Bottom line: Excessive amounts of TV and screen exposure are unhealthy. Thanks, researchers, for spending the time and money to publish this conclusion, because sadly, parents in our culture lack the common sense to figure this out on their own.

Unfortunately, all the research in the world isn’t enough to compel parents to pull the plug and send children outside to play. In fact, while playing outdoors is still the healthiest and safest form of recreation, parents – propelled into fear, thanks to the time they themselves spend on 24/7 news sites – think that even the end of the driveway is too far from home to be considered a safe distance.

Lenore Skenazy, author of “Free Range Kids,” says it’s not only the fear of creepy strangers that keeps kids indoors, but also the fear of parental shame and blame. Parents know that the likelihood of a random kidnapping is low, but the likelihood that Nancy Grace would chronicle your child’s abduction on CNN and make you look like a lousy parent is 100 percent. Those odds strike fear into the heart of every mom or dad.

Consequently, parents succumb to the irrational fear that playing outside is unsafe, while watching TV in the family room and zoning out in front of a video game in a dark basement are things you can do to avoid imminent danger.

Once again, our parenting compass is pointing to “due wacky.”

In truth, it’s not the blood pressure research that is causing me to lament the change in the way our children recreate. It’s the fact that on any given sunny summer day, you can shoot a cannon through my neighborhood and not hit a living creature.

We’ve reached August, and my 11-year-old daughter has created so many imaginary friends with whom to spend her summer that I may need to have her evaluated for dissociative identity disorder.

We already had enough reasons to limit the time our children spend in front of an electronic screen before this evidence about the impact on blood pressure. How about we parents step up to the plate and do what’s right for children? All it takes is the push of a button and a simple command: “Go outside and play.”

Copyright 2009 Marybeth Hicks