In My Opinion

I heard about an article from the Wall Street Journal on the radio this morning talking about the school superintendent of Argyle High School, Jason Ceyanes, banning "freak dancing" and "grinding" at the winter dance recently. There's a video at the link above, too, that adds a lot of information to the story. Let me just say this, as a chaperone for the band and a prude femme, I want him as my school superintendent. He showed a video of teens "grinding" to a group of parents at a called meeting and I can't believe that there are parents who would think it's okay for their child to essentially simulate sex on the dance floor. But there were parents there who thought their children should be allowed to make their own decisions and express themselves however they wished. Do any of those so-called parents realize that they are just children? They aren't capable of making those decisions themselves, yet. Or perhaps, as Trey Ware pointed out this morning, the parents are dressing and acting the same way?

Progenitors today are increasingly abdicating their roles as parents who should be raising children with a sense of morality and modesty. The more we take away our external moral compass (God or your favorite Supreme Being) from society and use our own internal compass, the more likely we are to keep experiencing shameless, immature adults whose sole purpose in life is instant and/or self-gratification. I'm doing all I can to keep my kids from being members of the "it's all about me" generation and I know a lot of parents are. But there are the ones who just don't seem to give a flip about whether their daughter ends up pregnant or their son with a lifelong STD because they didn't teach them about abstinence or proper conduct for a young lady or gentleman.

I watched a young woman in the parking lot of Wal-Mart last week who ran up to a young man (both probably less than 20 years old), started yelling at him, yanking him around to face her and then grabbing his crotch. That display in public directly stems from lack of proper parenting. First of all the grabbing should never have happened, and secondly, the fight should have been in private. Why do they think the world needs to see their dark underside?

I think that clothing manufacturers have a lot to do with it, too. Provocative clothing has turned our girls into sluts. Oops, that's what they like to be called now. And music videos on MTV and VH1 continue to push the envelope of acceptable behavior. We need to make sure that producers of this garbage know in no uncertain terms that it's unacceptable. I'm fairly certain that the three of you who read my blog are raising children who aren't or won't be like this. I applaud you. I hope that we can find a way to bring sensibility back to our lives.

I'm off my soapbox now. If you hung in there, thank you.