Friday, January 2, 2009

Parental Advice

In my many hours of TV watching I have noticed a few commercials that are, well, let's just say they are a sign of the times. 
One commercial exhorts parents to make sure their kids "go out to play for an hour a day".  It shows kids paired with pro football players, running, throwing footballs and general physical activity. (A football game is 60 minutes of playing time, that is where the slogan comes from.)
The kids treat this physical activity as something NEW and UNIQUE. 

Imagine that, Mom! I can run and jump outside instead of sitting in front of the computer playing Madden 2009.

Parents are told to make sure their children get enough activity to grow up healthy. 
Remember when we were young? Staying indoors, no matter how cold or hot the weather, was NOT an option. We wanted to get OUT of the house, to hang out with our buddies for a game of manhunt, or football. We even rode our bikes to friends' houses!

The second commercial starts out with us hearing a man's voice chanting "all those boys are much too much". The chanting continues, and we start wondering why this man is chanting like that.  Eventually we are shown the man, who is outside practicing cheers with his young daughter. She has on a cute little uniform and pom poms. The funny part is this grown man doing the cheer, at first he looks very effeminate, but when you see the little girl it all makes sense.
That commercial is to tell parents to spend time with their children, so the children have a strong grownup presence in their lives.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't parents SUPPOSED to spend time with their kids?
What state is our nation in if we have to have commercials on TV telling parents how to raise their children? 
I think it's time to go back to the old fashioned way of raising children. No more "time outs" or treating Mommy like an equal. Mom & Dad are in charge, if you get out of line you get a whack on the behind, and that's that. We were all brought up like that and we are fine. None of us ever thought of calling DYFS on our parents, did we?
I never did.
I guess I need to turn off the TV and get outside myself, if all these commercials are bothering me. 


3 comments:

Tara said...

HA HAAAA!!! So funny that you posted this because Kyle and I and Jessica were talking about this NYE night.. we will beat our kids if they deserve it.. i don't mean pound them into tomorrow, but a nice ass spankin and thrown into a corner facing the wall with NO IPOD or PSP or human interaction like we had will definitely be in our houses. WEll that's if i ever have kids lol.
Thanks for the nostalgia! Manhunt! lol

nighthawk said...

Truer words were never spoken. Most of these cons I interview never had an old man or ran the streets being brought up by their grandparents. Everybody thinks the sun rises and sets on their kid's ass!

Anonymous said...

Ah, as if anything were as simple as it seems at times. Yes, we as kids were out from sun up to sun down virtually all the time. Our parents never worried that if we were left outside for a couple of minutes that we would possibly whisked away by some maniacal creep.

Personally I have never hit my daughter. Fortunately for me, I have never had to. Yes, instilling proper morals, ethics, and spending time with your children in important. But don't forget, even in "our times" there were kids that had parents that were, to be polite, less than ideal in instilling these virtues in their kids, and now dual income homes have exacerbated this problem over the years even more, as have longer work days, etc.

I don't see anything wrong with sending "reminders" to these parents to do right by their kids. I don't see it as a sign of the times, but acknowledgment that the problem is there, and to try something... anything to make that situation better.