Tag Archives: kids

October 2, 2010 · 5:48 am

Kids: A Failing Grade on Morals?

Many of today’s kids seem to be flunking the daily moral tests of life.

James, a teacher-friend of mine, lamented recently how “morally challenged” his high school students seem to be. “They don’t think twice about lying or slamming someone’s reputation. Cheating on tests is no big deal. They only worry if they’ll get caught.”

Recent headlines and the latest studies paint a dismal picture of cheating, bullying, sexual experimentation, on-line exhibitionism and “cyber-stalking.” College students show declining levels of empathy—a quality viewed as the foundation of ethical behavior. And the problems start early. A quick snapshot of the playground culture captures younger children who bully their way to the top of the slide or push past a crying child to reach the swings first, classic examples of self-absorption and lack of compassion.

What—or who—is to blame?

Fingers point to a variety of big cultural problems:  hyper-sexualized media, fragmented families, declining religiosity, and rampant materialism.

But new research from Notre Dame Professor Darcia Narvaez suggests that current parenting practices are the more likely culprit. The “moral sense” of children—now and in times past–hinges on whether they learn empathy and concern for others, particularly in the early years of life.  ““Our work shows that the roots of moral functioning form early in life, in infancy, and depend on the affective quality of family and community support.” And the problem, according to her research, is that today’s child-rearing practices make that increasingly difficult. The result: “The quality of our cultural moral fiber is diminishing.”

The specific problems with childrearing today might be summed up by what’s missing: time together, physical closeness, and adult responsiveness. In particular, Narvaez contrasts the “emotionally suboptimal day care facilities with little individualized, responsive care” to the optimal situation that keeps children close  to mom, encourages parental responsiveness to infant needs, and offers parents and children strong support from extended family and the community.

She cites a specific set of “ancestral” practices that cultivate strong family bonds—and consequently support moral development, particularly compassion and concern for others.  These include:

  • Plenty of positive touch (cuddling, carrying, etc.)
  • Parental responsiveness to the child’s needs.
  • Extended breastfeeding (2-5 years)
  • Natural child-birth (which provides a hormonal boost aiding newborn care)
  • Lots of unstructured playtime, with children of varied ages.
  • The presence of additional adults (typically dads and grandmothers) to love, care for, and guide the child. Mom is not alone.

I don’t think anyone would argue that we should—even if we could–replicate the exact family practices of long ago. But the insights from Dr. Narvaez’ research make sense, from a parent’s perspective.

It’s much easier to discipline a child and pass on a moral framework within the context of a warm, caring parent-child relationship.

As a practical matter, kids who feel loved and well-cared for tend to listen better and want to please their parents—making discipline easier and encouraging them to internalize their parents’ morals.  Kids naturally imitate what they see over time, so the time spent together and the quality of the relationship with the parent are important: a child who experiences the self-giving love of a parent sees a daily model of other-centeredness, and the parent’s responsiveness teaches a child to recognize others’ needs and alleviate their sufferings, instilling compassion.

The bottom line: moral formation does seem to “stick” better when it’s given in the context of a good relationship and supported by others, both in the family and the community at large. But a warm parent-child relationship, or strong “attachment,” takes time, togetherness, tenderness, and teaching—all of which seem to be frequent casualties of our fast-paced, multi-tasking, dual-income lifestyles.

Dr. Narvaez’ research is both a comfort and a warning.  She says, “Kids who don’t get the emotional nurturing they need in early life tend to be more self-centered. They don’t have available the compassion-related emotions to the same degree as kids who were raised by warm, responsive families.” Her words offer comfort for those who sacrifice much in order to give their children love and a good moral foundation.  But they also warn that if our society fails to support families with children, the moral fabric of our culture will surely unravel.

© 2010 Mary Rice Hasson

This article first appeared at FamilyEdge on MercatorNet.com

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August 14, 2010 · 3:08 am

I Love Children: Singing the Countercultural Blues

Say the word “counterculture” and we conjure up past memories of hippies and tie-dyed shirts or present images of rappers and such. Last week brought a different kind of countercultural moment.

We spent the last evening of our Hilton Head, S.C., vacation right where we always do—under the spreading branches of the Liberty Oak in Harbor Town, next to the water. Singer Gregg Russell, whose happy songs and silly jokes have entertained parents, grandparents, and children for over 30 years in the Sea Pines Resort, delivers the right mix of fun for a family audience.

Our youngest, now 9, is too old to sit on stage or wave his hand frantically, hoping to be chosen to sing for the crowd, but still we go.  It’s family tradition.

One of our best memories is the year we almost missed the show, arriving near the end after a late dinner. Jimmy, then 8, had raced ahead of us on a secret mission of his own. Bent low, he squeezed through the crowd, past dozens of khaki shorts and sundresses, and wormed his way onto a corner of the stage.  We spotted him just as Gregg drawled, “Time for one last song. Who’s goin’ home tomorrow?”  Jim’s hand shot up and Gregg pulled him to center stage.

“You look like you wanna sing. Now, what’s your name?”

“Jimmy, and I want to sing The Star Spangled Banner.”

“The Star Spangled Banner?” (Laugh) “A lot of us grownups have trouble with that one. But, ok, let’s do it.”

Facing the crowd, Jimmy grew serious. He closed his eyes and began, “Ohh-ho say can you see,” A pause, then he belted it, “BAH the DAWNZ early light.” Jim sang our national anthem with the drama of a celebrity soloist at a major league ballpark. Silent at first, some in the crowd wiped away tears. Others smiled, whispered, and chuckled at his patriotic intensity. And halfway through, Gregg and the crowd joined in and ended with rousing applause.  I forgot the video camera that night but will never forget that performance.

Fast-forward thirteen years and Gregg Russell is still singing, voice a tad gravelly, white shorts and Hawaiian shirt still bright. He tells the audience how proud he is of all his kids, especially his older son serving overseas in the military. Our national-anthem-singer, Jimmy, is 21 and he too will be headed to the Army as a second lieutenant, come spring. It’s a great night to relish this vacation ritual as he and his siblings joke around in the back of the crowd.

So what could possibly be countercultural in a setting like this?

A song–and its message. Gregg Russell launched into one of his favorite sing-alongs, “Thank God for Kids!” by the Oak Ridge Boys. The song riveted my attention and stirred my emotions, quite unexpectedly.

Why? Because it unabashedly expressed a sentiment that fewer and fewer adults seem to hold anymore–children are a wonderful blessing…and we love them! Undeserved gifts from God, our children are ours to cherish and love without counting the cost.  

In an audience full of children, their parents, and grandparents, the song captured a shared experience and heartfelt emotion—gratitude for the gift of children and the privilege of being a parent. It was simply awesome to hear so many voices shouting out, “Thank God for kids!”

Gregg’s message felt new and fresh precisely because our culture has drifted so far from it.  Pundits, entertainers, and social scientists “count the cost” of having children quite literally every day.  Kids drain our money, time, and resources, and sap our happiness as well, they say.  And the media amplifies that message.

Stories emphasize the burdens and magnify the lifetime costs of having children.  Typical is the USDA estimate that parents will spend $286,050 to raise a child, not including college. Daunting numbers. Intimidating, really. But they’re pointless stats, irrelevant to actual decision-making. It’s like toting up the lifetime costs of a mortgage and deciding you can’t afford to live anywhere, because your bank account only has today’s payment in it.  Nobody asks for all the money up front when we have a child.  We raise children like we do everything else: day-by-day.

More to the point, the intangible value of loving a child, and receiving love in return, is lost in the weeds of cost-benefit analysis. Love isn’t meant to be hoarded or saved up for a later withdrawal. And our capacity for love certainly can’t be measured by our bank balance.

Applying a cost-benefit analysis to children descends into self-centered calculations in other ways too. We focus myopically on how much time and work children require of us. Time magazine reports a surge in only children; only children show the highest ambition and educational achievement because there’s no “dilution of resources” towards siblings. As my husband, an only child, likes to point out, there’s also no one to play with on lonely afternoons, no one to commiserate with as a teen, and no one to help care for your aging parents. And for that you get a ten-point bonus on the SAT?  So what.

But it gets worse. Married couples are startlingly less likely than ever before to include any children in their vision of marital happiness. Only 41% of adults view children as an important part of marriage. (By comparison, 93% rank fidelity as important to their marital happiness and 62% rank shared chores as important.)

The child-negative messages have traction: children are increasingly absent from our common adult experience. Nearly one in five women (20%) now reaches mid-life without having had a child. Less than half of all American households (46%) have children under 18 at home; even fewer (under 25%) are married couples with children.  And now a new breed of environmental cheerleaders urges adults to choose a permanent “childfree” life to maximize adult freedom and minimize injury to the planet. It’s GINK’s they are (green inclinations, no kids), and proud of it.

My countercultural moment celebrating the gift of children was well-timed: this fall we’ll have more kids out of the house than in it.  I’m acutely aware of the value of every moment we have with them—and the eternal worth of each one of those seven lives.

So, I thank God for my kids! (And I hope you’ll do the same for yours.)

But I worry about a world where loving children—and celebrating them as a gift–is undeniably countercultural.

© 2010 Mary Rice Hasson

Read more of my blogs at Catholic News Agency’s new Catholic Womanhood pages.

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June 25, 2010 · 4:11 pm

Kids, Condoms, and the Provincetown School Board: Arrogance on Display

Parents, you’re irrelevant—at least in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

The school board there voted this month to give condoms–free for the asking and of course we won’t tell your parents—to elementary school students, regardless of age. That’s right, no age limit. We’re talking grade school here. Even a six-year-old could wander into the nurse’s office, ask for and receive condoms, and the new policy PROHIBITS the school personnel from telling parents what’s going on.

Why on earth would the school board approve such a policy?

Arrogance.  They know better than parents what’s good for kids. And what’s good for kids, in their view, is facilitating “safer” sex—never mind the pesky data that shows teen sex—let alone sex for 12 and unders–is rife with harm and exploitation. More on that in a minute.

Beth Singer, the school superintendent, defends the decision saying, “In Provincetown it’s the correct policy in order to protect kids.”  She goes on, justifying the decision with a fatalistic shrug: “We know that sexual experimentation is not limited to an age, so how does one put an age on it?”

Under the policy, that omniscient public servant—the school nurse—gets to decide what’s best for your child.  No matter if she barely knows his or her name or with whom the child anticipates having sex. (An older teen?  An adult?) If a child requests a condom, she offers “counseling” and provides birth control.  Unlike the parents, the nurse can even refuse the child’s request for a condom, depending on her judgment.  Parents don’t even get a courtesy call.

Part of the problem with the condom-pushing crowd, and sex educators in general, is that they all suffer from a feigned agnosticism when it comes to sex.  They can’t presume to say whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing for a child (or a teen) to have sex.  “Counseling” takes the Planned Parenthood approach that tells kids, “We believe you’re the only one who can decide what’s right for you.”  So when teens—or little kids—have sex, it’s just a “fact” that school boards deal with by doling out discrete little packages.  They are dead wrong on this.

Consider this data from the Kaiser Family Foundation: the younger a child begins sexual activity, the greater the age difference between partners is likely to be. (Can we say “child sexual abuse” or exploitation?).  At least a third of teens report feeling pressured to do unwanted sexual acts—common sense tells us that the 12 and under set is even more vulnerable to pressure and manipulation. In spite of widespread condom awareness and use, STDs are rampant among teens: adolescents are more physiologically vulnerable to sexually transmitted infection than are adults. And little kids? It’s gut-churning to think of their immature bodies playing host to grown-up diseases.  They can’t possibly even understand the long-term implications for their fertility or sexual and mental health. (Sexually active teens are more likely to suffer from substance abuse problems, increased depression, and suicide.)

And the best a Provincetown school nurse has got to offer is a packaged panacea?  A condom that does little to protect from physical harm and nothing to protect from emotional or psychological wounds? Parents need to insist not only on the right to guide their children in sexual matters but also on a school policy that teaches the truth.  Schools must stop pretending that they “can’t say” whether adolescent (or child) sexual activity is a good thing or a bad thing.  The “you decide what’s best” message to kids, when it comes to sexuality, is an utter failure.  Providing condoms—and shutting parents out of the conversation—ensures only that children will suffer more harm, not less.

Arrogance is expensive. And in Provincetown, unfortunately, it’s children who will pay the price.

(c) 2010  Mary Rice Hasson

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March 8, 2010 · 6:27 am

Condoms for 12-year-olds

(Warning: graphic)

Sorry to spoil your breakfast, folks, with revolting news, but you should know about this. The largest Swiss manufacturer of condoms announced a new product launch last week: condoms, size extra small, designed to fit boys as young as 12.  Why the push? According to the latest Swiss government-funded study, more 12-14 year-old boys than ever are having sex—and they are doing it without condoms. Man-size “protection” apparently doesn’t fit and falls off (a problem shared by nearly 25% of teens, according to a German study).

So, are we surprised that a boy’s child-size anatomy—which goes along with his child-size emotions, understanding, and judgment—doesn’t fit into daddy’s prophylactic? The Swiss apparently are. The researchers declared themselves “shocked” that “young boys… display apparently risky behaviour. They have more of a tendency not to protect themselves. They do not have a very developed sexual knowledge. They do not understand the consequences of what they are doing….” (Emphasis added).

So they need condoms? What, in Narnia packaging or an Avatar-blue color? Maybe they should stock them right next to the Nintendo DS games at Toys-R-Us. Nah, this isn’t a game—it’s all about health. Better stick them next to the neon Bandaids. And price them singly, so a 12-year-old doesn’t spend his whole allowance on protection and have nothing left for Doritos after school. Oh yes, they’ve already named the condoms– “Hotshots,” a double-entendre striving to be cool.

Morality aside, what are these adults thinking? Parenting 101 says that when a kid doesn’t understand the consequences of certain behavior, he’s nowhere near ready to do it (whatever “it” may be).  At best, these adults are idiots.

Unfortunately, I really don’t think they are. The whole thing feels creepy to me, evil in fact.  Any 12-year-old boy engaging in sex needs a parent—not a condom–to protect him. If he’s having sex with someone older, the law calls that abuse, sexual assault, or rape. And if he’s experimenting with a peer, he needs an adult to step in and prevent it precisely because the kids “do not understand the consequences of what they are doing.”

This condom ploy is about two things: money and license. For the condom company, greed tramples any real concern for children. Lamprecht AG, the Swiss condom manufacturer, boasts of its intent to market the extra small condom in the United Kingdom next: “the UK is certainly a very attractive market since there is a very high rate of underage conception.” (Sounds like Planned Parenthood, here in the U.S., which makes huge amounts of money dispensing contraceptives and providing abortions.) There’s money to be made. Like any company trying to grow a market, Lamprecht AG ultimately must “grow” the need. They make money off the extra small condom only if more children have more sex. Good for kids? No way.  Good for Lamprecht? Absolutely.

Worse than the condom company, in my view, are the professionals complicit in this whole effort—the Swiss government, the family planning advocates, and the AIDS activists.  They all pushed for development of the kid-sized condom, even though they know the research shows that sex is not good for kids. They are well aware that young children who are sexually active may indeed be the victims of abuse.

They don’t care. Their agenda is to brand sexual license– in all its variations, with any number and combination of genders–as normative and beneficial. Sex, in this view, has all the moral significance of a damn-good back scratch. Emotional significance? Only if the participants choose to invest it with meaning.

And the only sin is to fail to use protection…which brings us back to where we started.

Lamprecht AG, the maker of the Hotshot condom for kids, declares that, “Wellness is our business.” What they really mean is they’re banking on doing well in the “sexualizing your kids” business.

How do you feel about that?

Contact them online at http://www.lamprechtag.com/contact.jsp?l=0

© 2010 Mary Rice Hasson

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