What is Age-Appropriate Exposure?
With the extreme level of violence in our culture and society, I often wonder what children should be exposed to as they grow up. Someday I will have a kid of my own, and I'm going to have to confront this question with a mix of personal ideals and practicality. Being involved in education, I have had the opportunity to see firsthand how other people deal with this dilemma. It's startling to discover just how varied parental strategies are.
There have always been self-proclaimed experts ready and willing to tell you what children can handle. Tipper Gore became infamous during the 1980's for her efforts in forming PRMC (Parents Music Resource Center). By her own account, this issue revealed itself to her as she was driving with her daughter and listening to the car stereo. A Prince song ("Darling Nikki") came on the radio, and she realized that the singer was referencing masturbation. This made her extremely upset. But apparently it also piqued her interest enough for her to begin watching MTV. She found the graphic sex and violence depicted in videos (Van Halen, Motley Crue, The Scorpions, etc.) shocking. Her organization worked toward a specific set of goals that included trying to convince record companies to adopt a labeling system, to print lyrics, and to reconsider the contracts of performers who used explicit language. The PRMC also inspired Christian groups to take a more active role in trying to censor pop culture.
Over the last several decades, Christian conservative and rightwing pundits have been blaming the breakdown of "traditional family values" for virtually every problem that exists in the United States today. Even acts of Nature (or God, as they would have it) find their roots in the evils of moral relativism. Somehow many Christians believe that we can reverse the trend by embracing Christian Reformation, and instituting a religious state that would protect us from alternative ideas. Obviously only church-sanctioned books, music and films would be acceptable to these folks. That solves the problem of having to figure out what to expose your children to- simply cede your authority to the church hierarchy. Let them decide for you.
But what about the secular among us? How do the rest of us prospective and active parents make these decisions? Clearly we could fall back on the ratings systems already in place for film, television, and music. Or we could take a more active role and actually examine these cultural artifacts for ourselves. This is time-consuming and tricky because we would have to trust our own individual judgements regarding culture and development. For instance, I am disturbed by the levels of violence endorsed and/or glorified in films and television today. Compared to the commonly-held puritanical attitudes about our bodies and our sexuality, most of society is downright permissive when it comes to violence. Are these the relative values we want to place on these factors? Is it more important to shelter our children from the existence of gay people, than to discourage the use of physical force as an approach to conflict? If we seek to make decisions about these issues ourselves, we are in for a lot of introspection and explanation.
It's perhaps not enough to merely decide what your children can watch, or listen to. It seems to me that it's crucial to include communication as an essential component in child-rearing. Arbitrary age cutoffs may do little else besides stunt the mental or emotional development of your child. Only by encouraging discussion about difficult issues can you assess the maturity level of your kid. When they have encountered something that challenges the way they look at the world, they should feel welcome to to come and talk to you about it- otherwise you are giving away your responsibility to their teacher, the television or their peers. No one else is going to give the kind of individualized attention to a child as his/her parents are prepared and qualified to give. And perhaps that is how it should be.
There have always been self-proclaimed experts ready and willing to tell you what children can handle. Tipper Gore became infamous during the 1980's for her efforts in forming PRMC (Parents Music Resource Center). By her own account, this issue revealed itself to her as she was driving with her daughter and listening to the car stereo. A Prince song ("Darling Nikki") came on the radio, and she realized that the singer was referencing masturbation. This made her extremely upset. But apparently it also piqued her interest enough for her to begin watching MTV. She found the graphic sex and violence depicted in videos (Van Halen, Motley Crue, The Scorpions, etc.) shocking. Her organization worked toward a specific set of goals that included trying to convince record companies to adopt a labeling system, to print lyrics, and to reconsider the contracts of performers who used explicit language. The PRMC also inspired Christian groups to take a more active role in trying to censor pop culture.
Over the last several decades, Christian conservative and rightwing pundits have been blaming the breakdown of "traditional family values" for virtually every problem that exists in the United States today. Even acts of Nature (or God, as they would have it) find their roots in the evils of moral relativism. Somehow many Christians believe that we can reverse the trend by embracing Christian Reformation, and instituting a religious state that would protect us from alternative ideas. Obviously only church-sanctioned books, music and films would be acceptable to these folks. That solves the problem of having to figure out what to expose your children to- simply cede your authority to the church hierarchy. Let them decide for you.
But what about the secular among us? How do the rest of us prospective and active parents make these decisions? Clearly we could fall back on the ratings systems already in place for film, television, and music. Or we could take a more active role and actually examine these cultural artifacts for ourselves. This is time-consuming and tricky because we would have to trust our own individual judgements regarding culture and development. For instance, I am disturbed by the levels of violence endorsed and/or glorified in films and television today. Compared to the commonly-held puritanical attitudes about our bodies and our sexuality, most of society is downright permissive when it comes to violence. Are these the relative values we want to place on these factors? Is it more important to shelter our children from the existence of gay people, than to discourage the use of physical force as an approach to conflict? If we seek to make decisions about these issues ourselves, we are in for a lot of introspection and explanation.
It's perhaps not enough to merely decide what your children can watch, or listen to. It seems to me that it's crucial to include communication as an essential component in child-rearing. Arbitrary age cutoffs may do little else besides stunt the mental or emotional development of your child. Only by encouraging discussion about difficult issues can you assess the maturity level of your kid. When they have encountered something that challenges the way they look at the world, they should feel welcome to to come and talk to you about it- otherwise you are giving away your responsibility to their teacher, the television or their peers. No one else is going to give the kind of individualized attention to a child as his/her parents are prepared and qualified to give. And perhaps that is how it should be.
posted by Merge Divide at 5:06 PM
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