Kid Friendly

If you see a film that says "rated PG-13" advertised in the paper that your ten-year-old wants to see, you'd probably take them to see it, right? I mean, how bad could it be rated PG-13?

Now, what if you saw the same film ad, but the rating was D(h)(c)S(i)B(i) (which you would see from the legend meant death by hanging including a child, sexual innuendo and implied bestiality). Would you still take them to see it? It's the same movie – Pirates of the Carribean at World's End. And that was only in the first fifteen minutes of the film. Right off the top, we see a boy of about twelve hanged – he has to be stood on an upturned bucket to reach the noose – Keira Knightly forced to strip (off camera), and the suggestion that Johnny Depp had sexual knowledge of a goat.

At what point did we lose the concept that there are certain things that are inappropriate for our kids to be exposed to?

I keep hearing this bullshit that kids have "changed". Wrong. WE have changed them through laziness. Let me ask you people in your forties and fifties… do you think that OUR kids, the kids in their twenties and thirties are as good as we were at their age? I mean in general… I KNOW that your kids are excellent. And what about their kids? You know, the ones that you can't pry away from Grand Theft Auto long enough to have a conversation with them and can't concentrate on anything that takes more than five minutes EXCEPT Grand Theft Auto?

I'm the first to admit that my generation made lousy parents. We were distracted and self-involved. So our kids grew up shiftless and aimless, especially the boys. No sense of responsibility because we didn't GIVE them any responsibility. And the part that makes me the most anxious is that, for the most part, the men that these boys grew into know this and don't care. Ask one of them about "Knocked Up" or "The Forty-Year Old Virgin" and they'll freely admit that it accurately reflects their lives.

So what are we going to do? Well, what I can suggest is that you DISCIPLINE YOUR KIDS. Limit the amount of time that they spend playing games, watching TV, etc. Set their Xbox, Playstation and DVD player so that they can't watch R rated movies or play M rated video games.

I know… I've mentioned this stuff before. What can I say? I think that it bears repeating.

Peace.

Randal