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Three years ago this August, my life changed in ways beyond my imagination when I became a mother. Olivia, my sweet but rambunctious daughter, is 2 going on 20 and grows wiser each day. About four months ago I was blessed again, this time with a son whom we named Tyler. These two little people now dominate my world.
As I thought about what I’d write for this, my first guest editorial, a hundred ideas filled my head.I kept shuffling them around, but none seemed quite right.Then on Sunday morning it hit me. Well, actually, it hit my ears. As I sat at the breakfast table with my daughter, a commercial came on for a popular TV show on a mainstream network. One of the celebrity hosts spoke loudly to the camera with a sentence that began, “How the h___…” You can fill in the blank. This was at 7:30 in the morning on what was, for us, a church day. Fortunately, my daughter didn’t hear that man’s remark, or if she did, she didn’t question or repeat it. At her age she questions and/or repeats nearly everything though, so if we see that ad again, I may not be so lucky.
Call me a prude if you will. I looked up “prude” in the dictionary before I started writing this, just to see if it describes me, and it probably does. I realize that the world is not what it was when “Leave It to Beaver” was on TV. Even the nightly news shows things now that would never have been aired a decade or two ago. As a teacher I see the changes that have taken place in family structure and children’s behavior during my career. I’m not blind to all of this; things have to change over time. It’s just that, my eyes and ears got a lot more sensitive about three years ago. The things I used to laugh at on TV aren’t quite as funny when they might have to be explained to a 2-year-old. It’s hard for me to listen to the same morning radio deejays that I used to enjoy, because I realize now that they’re a lot cruder than I had noticed in the past. The lyrics to the songs they play wouldn’t sound nearly as good if uttered from the lips of my little one either. How did I not notice all of these things before?
Now please don’t get me wrong on the censorship issue. If people want to watch or listen to everything — or let their kids do so — then that’s their business. I know that I can ban channels, publications, and websites at my house if I want to, and I’m fine with that. What I’m much more concerned about are the things I can’t see coming, like the guy we encountered at a local gas station where we stopped last week. He loudly cursed everything from the gas pumps to the friend with him and his truck while we were there, oblivious to the fact (or just not caring) that everyone around could hear what he was saying. It’s the “news” reported about stunts like the one Sacha Baron Cohen pulled at the MTV Movie Awards last week, where he drifted from the rafters wearing little more than a jock strap and landed, shall we say “inappropriately,” on another performer. We didn’t watch that at my house, but we do watch news on channels like CNN, who saw fit to cover this “breaking story.” Did I really need to see that on the news? It’s commercials like the one we saw this past Sunday, the one that sparked this story in my head.I can’t control everything that my children will see and hear, and I can’t make myself crazy trying to do so. I’d just like to know when all of this bad behavior became so normal that we didn’t even notice it anymore. As my fourth-grade students said this past year, in regard to inappropriate language, “Who cares, Mrs. Bergsten? It’s not like we haven’t heard that stuff a million times!”Guess what?I’m someone who cares.
When I was a kid, my dad used to tell my brother and me not to do things we couldn’t do if he was standing right there with us. That image stayed with me during high school and college, and it’s probably part of the reason I stayed out of trouble. Where our words are concerned, maybe it’s more like this: If you wouldn’t say it in front of your grandmother, and you couldn’t say it at work, then you probably shouldn’t say it. Period. And yet, there are lots of folks in the world who are more careful about what they say to total strangers than they are about how they talk to their own kids. It makes me sad.
You don’t have to be a prude, a teacher, or a mother to care about children. I just happen to be all three. For the sake of all the kiddos out there, please watch what you say and do today. It may spark some new ideas in your head as well.
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Editor’s Note: This guest editorial is offered by Jamie Bergsten, a member of the News-Star’s Guest Editorial Board. She is also a teacher at Grove School. The views expressed by our guest editorialists and guest columnists are theirs, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the News-Star’s management.
Three years ago this August, my life changed in ways beyond my imagination when I became a mother. Olivia, my sweet but rambunctious daughter, is 2 going on 20 and grows wiser each day. About four months ago I was blessed again, this time with a son whom we named Tyler. These two little people now dominate my world.
As I thought about what I’d write for this, my first guest editorial, a hundred ideas filled my head.I kept shuffling them around, but none seemed quite right.Then on Sunday morning it hit me. Well, actually, it hit my ears. As I sat at the breakfast table with my daughter, a commercial came on for a popular TV show on a mainstream network. One of the celebrity hosts spoke loudly to the camera with a sentence that began, “How the h___…” You can fill in the blank. This was at 7:30 in the morning on what was, for us, a church day. Fortunately, my daughter didn’t hear that man’s remark, or if she did, she didn’t question or repeat it. At her age she questions and/or repeats nearly everything though, so if we see that ad again, I may not be so lucky.
Call me a prude if you will. I looked up “prude” in the dictionary before I started writing this, just to see if it describes me, and it probably does. I realize that the world is not what it was when “Leave It to Beaver” was on TV. Even the nightly news shows things now that would never have been aired a decade or two ago. As a teacher I see the changes that have taken place in family structure and children’s behavior during my career. I’m not blind to all of this; things have to change over time. It’s just that, my eyes and ears got a lot more sensitive about three years ago. The things I used to laugh at on TV aren’t quite as funny when they might have to be explained to a 2-year-old. It’s hard for me to listen to the same morning radio deejays that I used to enjoy, because I realize now that they’re a lot cruder than I had noticed in the past. The lyrics to the songs they play wouldn’t sound nearly as good if uttered from the lips of my little one either. How did I not notice all of these things before?
Now please don’t get me wrong on the censorship issue. If people want to watch or listen to everything — or let their kids do so — then that’s their business. I know that I can ban channels, publications, and websites at my house if I want to, and I’m fine with that. What I’m much more concerned about are the things I can’t see coming, like the guy we encountered at a local gas station where we stopped last week. He loudly cursed everything from the gas pumps to the friend with him and his truck while we were there, oblivious to the fact (or just not caring) that everyone around could hear what he was saying. It’s the “news” reported about stunts like the one Sacha Baron Cohen pulled at the MTV Movie Awards last week, where he drifted from the rafters wearing little more than a jock strap and landed, shall we say “inappropriately,” on another performer. We didn’t watch that at my house, but we do watch news on channels like CNN, who saw fit to cover this “breaking story.” Did I really need to see that on the news? It’s commercials like the one we saw this past Sunday, the one that sparked this story in my head.I can’t control everything that my children will see and hear, and I can’t make myself crazy trying to do so. I’d just like to know when all of this bad behavior became so normal that we didn’t even notice it anymore. As my fourth-grade students said this past year, in regard to inappropriate language, “Who cares, Mrs. Bergsten? It’s not like we haven’t heard that stuff a million times!”Guess what?I’m someone who cares.
When I was a kid, my dad used to tell my brother and me not to do things we couldn’t do if he was standing right there with us. That image stayed with me during high school and college, and it’s probably part of the reason I stayed out of trouble. Where our words are concerned, maybe it’s more like this: If you wouldn’t say it in front of your grandmother, and you couldn’t say it at work, then you probably shouldn’t say it. Period. And yet, there are lots of folks in the world who are more careful about what they say to total strangers than they are about how they talk to their own kids. It makes me sad.
You don’t have to be a prude, a teacher, or a mother to care about children. I just happen to be all three. For the sake of all the kiddos out there, please watch what you say and do today. It may spark some new ideas in your head as well.
———
Editor’s Note: This guest editorial is offered by Jamie Bergsten, a member of the News-Star’s Guest Editorial Board. She is also a teacher at Grove School. The views expressed by our guest editorialists and guest columnists are theirs, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the News-Star’s management.
