“Carol get hooked up” was the subject of an email I received this morning from “urbangiftcardonus@….” Associating it with Urban Outfitters in Cambridge, I opened it.
It was a “gift” card offer from FabFlyGear.com, selling clothing by Sean “Diddy” Combs, 50 Cent, Jay-Z, and Eminem.
Frankly, if my mind were not on writing this column in response to the Gloucester High School pregnancy debacle, I would have simply put it in the trash. However, since I have visited Urban Outfitters from time to time, mostly out of curiosity, I decided there might be something on sale there that could help me shape an argument to explain what needs to be done if we are to save nearly an entire generation of youngsters from dissolution.
As for knowing better, I need to remind myself it is easy to do. I simply need to remember that if the address of the sender does not look familiar and if its subject line promises to bear a gift too, chances are it is something that is better off unread and dead.
Know better than visiting this site or similar sites that provide you with the opportunity to listen to songs and/or watch videos made available by these and other similar groups. They grossly offend the ear and eye.
Know better than allowing your children or grandchildren to visit similar sites as well.
“I Like the Way She Do It” by 50 Cent (“dirty version”) is testimony enough that when it comes to a nation’s youngsters, who are being fed the wrong message daily by the Internet, the recording industry, the television, the film industry, the news media, and, unfortunately, even sometimes our schools, our nation is at risk.
I may be more fortunate than some. My family has a tradition of generations being 25 or more years apart and, therefore, I need only worry about my grandchildren and their children. With a two-year-old grandson and a grandchild due in mid July, I still have time to pray that our nation will begin to “care about the children.”
This means it must do something about the unwholesome messages that pop culture sends daily to our young. This means it must change the content of sex education courses made available in our schools, teach abstinence, or do away with them entirely, as well as stop providing financial and educational benefits to babies who have babies.
As for pop culture’s message to teens, it is hard to overlook the unwholesome messages that “Juno” (see my column “Keep the Kids From ‘Juno,’” January 23, 2008) and Jamie Lynn Spear’s recent baby born out of wedlock sent to kids looking for possible role models. Movies “Knocked Up” and “The Waitress” were not much better. While television shows “Sex in the City” and “Two and Half Men” promote rampant promiscuity several times a day via reruns on different channels, Bridget Moynahan’s decision to have Tom Brady’s baby out of wedlock hasn’t helped some youngsters stay the moral course either.
Worse, it is hard to overlook the message that even some of the best private schools and colleges have been sending. Admissions and scholarships are often more accessible to single moms than to many youngsters who have worked hard to keep their moral compasses pointed in the right direction. They are frequently more available to the children of single moms as well, hence, supporting the notion that having a baby out of wedlock can be rewarding.
Rewards have also come in the form of attention: both prior to and after the child is born. All the while, the students who do what school is for, carry books, and study, are often ignored.
For years social services have provided single moms with medical care, baby goods, childcare, financial assistance, education, and housing, while responsible young women have put off motherhood while pursuing an education, marriage, and financial well being suitable enough to fund the necessities that accompany parenthood, at the risk of their biological clock ticking a warning that time might be running out.
For years, schools have overlooked the large numbers of students who would choose to prepare themselves academically during the time allotted for school, but over and over again are forced to attend sex education classes and/or assemblies that address sexuality and/or substance abuse.
When I was in the high school classroom, I frequently heard students cry out that they would rather attend a regular class than listen to lectures on sex and STDs. I saw them squirm during assemblies that focused on sex and/or substance abuse or both. I saw them look down as they pretended that they could not hear or see the embarrassing and disrespectful comments and gestures some of their classmates made as they passed through the corridors after they attended a sex ed. class or an assembly.
Perhaps it is time for communities to spend less time social engineering and more time supporting the notion that school is meant for an academic education. It is not a place to learn about sexual practices, to get condoms, to arrange for pregnancy tests, or to receive childcare for babies that, for whatever reason, some have chosen to have although they are not old enough to care for them responsibly.
Then maybe more of our nation’s youngsters might be able to academically compete with students who are currently beating them out in other developed countries across the globe.
Westwood resident Carol Ziemian teaches writing at Northeastern University. Her column appears in the Daily News Transcript on Wednesday. She can be reached at YankeePenn@aol.com.
