Keep It Pithy (11 page)
Authors: Bill O'Reilly
The parents gave up part of their job to TV, TV brought in pretty pictures of perfect family life, and the kids glued to this mental bubble gum began having
unreasonable
expectations of their own human, unscripted parents. Most parents want to do what’s best for their kids, though it’s not always easy to know what that is. With TV images and ad temptations millions of American parents came under siege. TV, according to
one writer, “fed a sense of generational superiority” in the kids who watched it. I know exactly what he means, and so do you.… Satisfying the desires of children can be an overwhelming task. Worse, it can distract parents from paying attention to the really important parental duties: teaching discipline, morality, and the truth about how the world works.
Or, in the same vein:
Seven in ten [high school students] admit to cheating on tests, and 92 percent say they lie. And most of those kids don’t feel much guilt at all.… What caused this deplorable state of affairs? Number one, “cowardly parenting.” Number two, “corrupt national leadership.” As the tree is bent, so will it grow. And today kids can look all around at so many bent adults that they can hardly guess what it means to be straight. People basking in the spotlight—and I don’t mean just politicians—are forever presenting terrible examples to the children of America.
And if we so-called adults can be tricked senseless by the clever shills of Madison Avenue, pity our poor children. The ads are designed to make them think that they are the most deprived creatures alive because they don’t own expensive designer clothing or high-tech toys and games.…
Money doesn’t buy love or happiness. We have to help
our children understand that the proof of affection is
not
an overpriced gift. Otherwise, we are helping the advertisers set them up for a frustrating life of trying to cope with their problems by racking up credit card bills at the mall.
The late Steve Allen talked about the dangers of TV to children on my program some years ago
.
I think it’s a conversation worth remembering:
O
’
REILLY
: Do you think that watching these programs will make kids want to have sex?
ALLEN
: No. Mother Nature makes them want to have sex. The argument is that when sexual material is dealt with on television and nobody has to worry about birth control or sexual disease, then the implication is, “Hey, it’s all kind of cute and hip and let’s do it even though I’ve never met you before.”
O
’
REILLY
: So you believe kids are impressionable enough to pick up a message like “They’re having fun at Beverly Hills High. I should have fun at my school”?
ALLEN
: Yeah, I believe that. There’s a lot of documentation. This is not just some theory of mine. I am by no means a saint. But the sleaze and vulgarity on TV disgust even an old roué like me. It’s part of the whole dumbing down, the coarsening. The question is, what kinds of parents are the kids today going to make? I think the answer is, not too good.
O
’
REILLY
: Why?
ALLEN
: Well, imagine an ideal father. Would you like it if he came home with a couple of broads on each arm? You see that image on TV.
O
’
REILLY
: Are you referring to President Clinton?
ALLEN
: That’s another matter. But really, if people don’t know we have a problem here, then we are in worse shape than I thought.
But neither Steve Allen nor I would ignore the challenges that parents face today. No guilt trips here for working parents who must sometimes, for economic reasons, put their children in the care of others
.
Look at today’s reality in America. Families have to deal with a tough dance card. The cost of housing and modern
conveniences is significant, and taxes are gutting the take-home pay of the working class. By necessity, most Americans have to work longer and harder than they might like. If you have more than two children, chances are both parents will have to work at least part-time.…
Children need a calm environment, focused attention, consistency, and discipline. Working parents can provide those necessities if they are willing to engage and stimulate the child when they are at home. Day care is risky, no doubt about it. Exposure at a young age to undisciplined or troubled children at a center can cause angst in your own child. The bacteria count in some of these places is off the chart and the supervision is out of your hands. The gently smiling caregiver might be a simpleton who sets the kids down in front of a TV and does little else. Not a great situation any way you slice it unless you get lucky. There are excellent daycare facilities but if your kid is in one, make sure you drop in unannounced from time to time.…
[No one] has the right to make working mothers feel guilty. American women have pursued careers and raised fine families at the same time. However, these dual purposes must be carefully thought out and executed with precision. Children should always get first priority, and if trouble develops, the job has to be put aside.
Torture movies are flooding the market, especially in the summer, when young people are looking for something to
do. These cynical films revel in explicit scenes of human suffering inflicted with a cavalier glee by both the actors and the special-effects people. Sadism rules, and some sociologists believe a diet of this stuff desensitizes people, making them less likely to sympathize with the real-life suffering of others. So, are the people profiting from torture movies evil? The torture-film people don’t have a tortuous explanation for their abysmal behavior; they have a simple one: It’s only a movie. What’s the big deal? Everybody knows motion pictures are fiction; there’s nothing real about the pain and suffering gleefully inflicted on-screen.
Except it’s sickening.
If you think about it, the torture industry is very easy to explain. Simply put, it makes a product for sadistic people to enjoy. The more suffering on-screen, the better. Let’s get a close-up of that arm being amputated and that eyeball being gouged out. Again, it’s all about money. Why else would anyone spend time and resources filming ways to hurt people? Where is the good in that?
The answer, of course, is that there is no good in that. Only evil. Simply put, anyone who delights in portraying or watching human suffering is sick. Got it?
Another topic on which the media are no friends to family values: drugs
.
Until public pressure forces our apathetic and frightened politicians to get really tough on those who sell narcotics, Americans will continue to die with needles in their arms, prostitute themselves, infect each other with the AIDS virus, and steal anything they can. How much heartache has to pass through the nation before society reacts? Are you going to wait until it’s your child with the drug problem?