Once
they pass the age of interest in Barney and Sesame Street,
kids are left with limited musical choices. By default, they
enter the world of "teen pop", where the song lyrics
revolve around romantic relationships and a world that young
children know very little about. With the increasing acceptance
and popularity of rudeness and rebellion in popular music,
young kids are walking around mouthing lyrics like "do
you really wanna touch it?" and "if you wanna be
my lover..." (hopefully, without the first clue as to
the meaning of their words). They often end up latching on
to the more "santized" of the teen pop stars...but,
because those artists have careers to build, they can't afford
to be seen as appealing to a very young audience for more
than about one album. Remember Britney Spears? How many parents
are comfortable letting their kids listen to her now? Can
other "good, clean" artists like Hilary Duff be
far behind? If she is, she would be the rare exception to
the rule...
Freedom,
independence, romance and sexuality are all normal, natural
parts of the maturation process...as well as defining topics
in the lives of adults...when balanced with responsibility and
commitment. But for developing young minds, they are topics
best introduced slowly, as curiosity arises naturally, and in
doses they can take time to digest over a period of years. However.
our lay-it-all-out-there, reality-show culture seems to have
thrown off virtually all restraints. It can be argued whether
or not that's a good thing for adults, but its our children
who are the real losers. Where do we think all this talk of "going out" at age 6-7 comes from?
To
be clear, this is not about the concept that children might
accidentally see an uncovered human body part or hear an expletive
that should have been deleted. Rather, the real issue is that
we have allowed the societal compact to protect our young to
erode terribly in recent years. We no longer honor childhood
in the way we used to. We used to believe that children needed
to be protected until they were "of age" for exposure
to a given adult topic or activity. However, in order to honor
something, it needs both to be protected and invested in. This
means time, energy, money and creativity. Instead, we've ripped
away the protections that once allowed kids to learn from role
models without a profit motive or a personal agenda. |
