"Skins" - (sigh) more teen sex on TV

There has been a lot in the news lately about an American version of a British (scripted – not reality) show aimed at teenagers called “Skins.” It’s been on the air for two weeks with original presentations of new episodes aired on MTV on Monday nights at 10 p.m.

I first heard about “Skins” when I read an article this weekend in The New York Times that focused on whether or not the show – which shoots in Canada – crosses the line into child pornography. Evidently there was concern about Episode 3, which airs Jan. 31, which allegedly revealed teenagers in situations that could be considered pornographic. Many of the cast members of the scripted show are 18 years old, but some are only 17; one is as young as 15.

I wanted to watch the show before I commented on it, and I’ve now seen the first two episodes. It centers on a group of friends who seem to care about little else than sex, drugs, and drinking, all of which they engage in as often as they can – which includes school too. Most of the adults in the show are flawed, foolish caricatures of the stereotypical adults who inhabit the lives of urban teenagers.

MTV is losing sponsors for the show. Different news agencies report that Subway, GM, H&R Block, Wrigley, and Taco Bell have pulled their support because of pressure from the Parents Television Council. (H&R Block reps stated they never intended to sponsor the show in the first place, and their ads that ran during the first episode were mistakenly aired.)

My opinion on the show? It’s another vehicle to show teens gratuitous sex, as well as drug and alcohol abuse. The acting is dreadful. But what am I saying that’s new here? In other words, what is MTV doing that’s new here”? Television shows and movies that cater to teenage audiences often have sex, drugs, and alcohol as part of the content, if not at the center of it. “Gossip Girl,” anyone? “The Secret Life of the American Teenager?” Even the much-lauded, fun-to-sing-along-with “Glee” series has its share of teen sex scenes and issues. It’s out there, and that, I think is what I’m weary of.

There’s. So. Much. Of. It.

Did you think about sex when you were in middle school? I did. I’d bet you did too. It’s not a surprise, nor is it unusual (or even unhealthy) that our kids who are middle schoolers today think about it too. The thing is, there is so much out there on television – cable or network – that is available to them that shows them what it looks like to have sex – all kinds of sex. There’s so much out there that shows young teens drinking and doing drugs. Do all of these visuals egg our young teens on when it comes to engaging in activities that they really shouldn’t engage in? Do these images make those activities look so fun, so glamorous, and so cool, that they become irresistible?

I also wonder about what the younger teens are reading on their older friends’ Facebook and MySpace pages. When they read about older kids partying and having sex, does that make them want to do it more because they want to be older?

I’ve posed a lot of questions, I know. Here’s how I think I would answer them. I do think there is too much sex on TV – especially that which is aimed at our kids. I can’t change that, and honestly, I don’t want to be in the business of censoring what gets made.

What I do believe in is censoring what my kid sees and is exposed to in the home. My daughter is 17, so boundaries have grown and changed as she has, as I believe they should. But when she was in middle school and wanted to read the Gossip Girl series because her friends were reading it, I said no. She’s never read it. She didn’t watch the show when it came on TV.

The other thing I believe we can do at home to help offset our kids’ exposure to sex, etc., in the media is to talk to them – a lot – about all of these issues. They have to know they can come to us with questions. We have to be willing to ask questions of them and to do what we can to ensure we’re getting the whole story – the real truth in their answers. I’ve said it before – we have to be involved.

MTV defends its production and airing of “Skins,” saying they closely monitor each episode and the manner in which the issues are handled. They say they’re covered because the show is labeled “TV-MA” and never airs before 10 p.m. This label and this time-frame are supposed to keep young kids from watching the show. Yeah, right. My students are up until after midnight texting each other. Many of them have TVs in their rooms, as well as computers. (“Skins” episodes can be seen in their entirety on MTV’s website. All you have to do is tell the computer you’re 18 or older.) If they want to watch the show, MTV has done nothing to ensure they can’t watch it.

That job is ours.

Julian Hurley shouldn't have died.

WARNING: Rant ahead! I don’t intend to be politically correct or worry about people’s feelings. I’m getting on a soapbox.

In my job, I come across children every now and then who seem to belong to parents who really don’t want the job they signed up for when Tab A inserted itself into Slot B and a zygote resulted. Being a parent comes with multiple responsibilities, none of which require you to be your child’s friend.

Some of us are blessed with amazing relationships with our kids, but those relationships did not grow as a result of being friends. They grew because we taught them values, accountability, and respect. They grew because we let them know we believe in them, because we support them, because they know we have expectations for them and want them to have expectations and goals for themselves. They grew because we covered all of it in love – love when they’re adorable and sweet, and love when they’re difficult and challenging. We are the constants in their lives. They have to know we’re there, that every day we are going to show up for work – the work of being their mom or their dad.

We need to be involved. We need to put our kids first because that’s what the job requires. We need to know who their friends are, where they are spending their time, if they’re doing their homework, and if they’re not – why aren’t they? We need to just plain talk to them – make sure we know them as people. What are their hopes, their dreams, their fears? We need to offer guidance and strength, discipline and boundaries. And we need to be people our kids can look up to - people they want to emulate. We need to live good lives.

We don’t get a do-over when it comes to raising our kids, just ask Rhonda Hurley.

Hurley was released from the LaPorte County Jail on Monday – too late to save the life of her 4-year-old son, Julian. When she went to jail in September for welfare fraud, she left her 7-year-old son and Julian in the care of Jimmy Isbell, a man she said she’d known for twenty years. According to police, it appears as though Isbell had been abusing Julian for days – beating the little boy with his hands and his belt – until Julian died from his injuries on Friday. The older brother has been placed in a foster home. The oldest of Hurley son’s – an 8-year-old – lives with his father.

Hurley has told reporters she feels horrible. Julian’s grandmother is heartbroken. Yeah, I’m sure they are. The death of a child always makes us sad.

But what about a child’s life? Why didn’t the life that Julian was living – being forced to live because of the actions of his mother – make anybody sad enough to do something when it could have made a difference for that little boy?

Our children are our greatest gifts and responsibilities – for as long as our lungs breathe the God-given air. If you don’t know who your children’s friends are – find out. If you don’t know where your children are spending their time – find out. If your child is struggling in school, talk to them, to us at the school, about it.

Learn the word “no.” They don’t have to have everything they ask for. They don’t need to get to do everything they want to. “No” isn’t always easy, but sometimes it’s essential.

And for your children’s sake, if you’re doing something that could get you thrown in jail, stop it. Your kids need you – in every sense of the word – whether they’ll admit or not.

God knows, Julian Hurley deserved much better than he got in his four brief years on Earth.

Celebrating Tori's 17th Birthday

In a few days – three, to be exact – I get to celebrate my daughter’s seventeenth birthday. I don’t know where the time has gone. I can’t believe that seventeen years ago I could still feel her kick inside me. Seventeen years – it sounds like such a long time and yet it feels like yesterday.

I remember her as that tiny baby who didn’t even fill my arms when we brought her home. I remember her as a toddler running through my parents’ house , walking underneath their kitchen table without needing to stoop to do so, sitting in my dad’s recliner with him as he ever-so-patiently taught her her colors and how to write her name, and I remember her playing in the yard with my mom as Mom tended her flowers.

Then she went to school. I can still see her standing outside the school door, the first day of kindergarten, her face pressed up to the glass, hands beside her head, as she peered in, trying to see what lay before her on that monumental day.

Tori’s life has filled mine with more laughter and love than I have the capacity to convey. I love being her mom, sharing her life, more than I can tell you. I lament, sometimes, how fast the years seem to go. It won’t be long, now, before she’ll be out on her own, at college, really, truly making her own way. It will be here before I can blink.

I know that anyone reading this who is a parent can relate to what I’m saying. The love we have for our children is like no other love in the world. I try to remind myself to hug Tori as often I can, to tell her that I love her whenever I’m thinking it, because we all know that we never know what lies ahead through the next door, or down the next mile of the highway.

Two days ago, two young women from our town were in a horrible car accident. One of them, a freshman in college, died. The other, a junior in Tori’s class, is still in the hospital, but she will recover – physically – from her injuries. We pray that God will help her recover completely. No one could have predicted this tragedy. I’m sure that neither set of parents, when they said goodbye to their daughter that day before the wreck, knew what the day would hold for them.

Ali’s parents will never plan another birthday party for their daughter, as Tori and I have been doing these last couple days. The pictures and memories they have of Ali are all they will ever have, and my heart breaks for them and all they have lost.

God truly blessed me when he gave Tori to me. I pray every day that He will guide me and help me do the best job I can with her, and that He will always be with her, no matter what. Because I can’t be. Because really sad things happen when you least expect them. Because if God is with us, we are never truly lost.

I am grateful for every single hour I get to spend with my daughter, and I’m excited about the rest of her life, about seeing what she does with it, who she is going to become. She’s going to do great things because that’s who she is, and she makes me so proud.

When Tori told me today, all excited about her upcoming party, “I love my birthday!” all I could do was hug her and say, “Me too.”

Love you, Dixie

Dixie was a purebred German shorthair, but she never put on airs. She was just everyday folk, and she was a beloved member of our family for sixteen years. Today, she went to sleep, and I pray that when she woke up in her heaven, it was a field filled with critters to chase, places to investigate, and that her body felt as young and limber as it did so many years ago here with us.

There’s so much I could tell you about Dixie. I could tell you how it always made Mom and me smile when we’d watch Dad leave the house in the pickup, Dixie sitting on the bench seat beside him, their two heads close enough together that Mom and I were certain they were sharing secrets known only to them.

I could tell you about the way Dixie liked to cuddle down on her bed at night with her bear – a stuffed animal Mom would buy for Dixie each Christmas. (But if Mom bought one with a squeaker in it, she’d have to operate on the toy and remove the noisemaker before giving it to Dixie because Dix never liked to think she was hurting the toy when she carried it in her mouth.)

I could tell you about sitting at the kitchen table, enjoying a meal with the family, and feeling Dixie’s gentle nudge on my leg with her nose, her soulful, big brown eyes begging for a taste of just about anything on my plate. She was rarely refused. And I should also tell you that the nudge came as she stretched her neck into the kitchen from the back porch, where her (back) feet stayed planted. She knew her place, but she also knew how much she was loved, and how much she could get away with because of it. She enjoyed many delectable bits from many, many dinners, and often she enjoyed her own scrambled egg in the morning, courtesy of Mom.

I could tell you about how she shadowed my dad wherever he went outside. As soon as that back porch door swung open to greet the day, Dixie was out and trotting towards the barn, checking everything out as she went, making sure everything was ok before Dad got there. She would – as I already mentioned – ride in the pickup with Dad, trot along beside the tractor wherever that tractor might be going, or walk with Mom and Dad (and us kids) whenever we had places to explore on the farm.

I could tell you she was the best dog ever, and she was. (You might argue, if you have a best friend of the four-legged variety living with you.) But what I really want to tell you is that we lost a member of our family today, and that we’re grateful we got to spend so many years with an amazing dog named Dixie.

A birthday retrospective

I turned 42 today and decided to look backward for a little while. On the walk I took yesterday, I walked one direction for a half hour then turned around and went back the way I’d come. I thought there was something in that – looking at things you’d seen before but from a different perspective. The sunlight was hitting the trees differently, there were fewer shadows (because the sun had risen a little more), I walked on the other side of the road, so I saw things on that side I hadn’t seen on the first half of my walk. I knew that little nugget of an idea would become something, and here it is: my birthday blog.

I turned two in 1970. I’ve perused events from that year and have chosen a few to share – some personal, some not. In January, the first 747 entered into service. I’ve been on several of those in my life. They’ve taken me to some wonderful vacation spots: Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta, the Bahamas, Phoenix. The two that stand out for me are Cabo in 2008 because it was a family vacation and unforgettable because of those shared memories, and Phoenix – basically for the same reason. I took Tori to see my brother and his wife. It was the first time Tori flew and we had a blast! Also, in July of 1970, American Top 40 with Casey Kasem debuted. I have so many teen memories of that radio show, listening to see who was going to be on top each week. (And I have to admit, I loved the long distance dedications.)

In 1980, Mom remarried and Bob became my dad. There’s not a “step” needed, wanted, or included. Dad has taught me the value of work, laughter, and friendship (and the importance of keeping the oil changed in my car!). Together, he and Mom have taught me the meaning of family. The other big personal milestone for me in 1980 was beginning junior high. ‘Nuff said on that, right? The music world lost Bon Scott, John Bonham, and John Lennon. I don’t remember being affected by the first two – which is ironic because I became a fan of both AC/DC and Zeppelin – but I do remember Lennon’s assassination. Tori and I visited the memorial mosaic in Strawberry Fields in Central Park last year. And then, finally, the film Ordinary People was released. Last fall, the high school drama department staged this, and they did an amazing job with such mature material.

Ten years later, in 1990, I met Jim Gardner, whom I would marry the following year. The marriage didn’t work out, but Tori resulted from it, so I will never, ever regret that marriage. It was a very volatile year: I changed – and lost – jobs more than once. I moved twice – the first time being out of my family home and in with my soon-to-be husband. Lots of emotions ran around that year. On a broader spectrum, here are some international/national events that made me stop and go “Hmmmm” when I surveyed the list for the year: The Hubble Telescope was launched into space. Have you seen any of the pictures that thing has taken? If not, you need to Google them. They’re amazing. On a sad note, Jim Henson died in May. I was a big fan of the Muppets TV show and don’t think I could name just one favorite. Could you? Also in May, the WHO removed homosexuality from its list of diseases. I can’t believe it took that long, and I can’t believe how far we, as a society, are yet from acceptance of homosexuals. In August, Iraq invaded Kuwait, and we know the history of that, don’t we? At the end of September, the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. was finished, and I think I’ll finally get to see it next year!!

Ten years ago, in 2000, I was 32 years old and wrapping up my first year as a high school English teacher while Tori was wrapping up her year as a kindergartener. We were living in our very first apartment – just the two of us – and were very happy as the budding “Gardner Girls.” Looking outside my little world, Charlie Brown missed his last football kick in February when Charles Schulz died. I still love to watch the Peanuts specials at the holidays, don’t you? Playstation 2 was launched early in the year, and do you know, I still have never played with one? We don’t own one – any of the PS versions – and I have absolutely no desire to. In October, Al-Qaeda attacked the USS Cole. Tragically, we know where they struck less than a year later.

So, here I am. It’s 2010 and I’m 42 years old. I have a 16-year-old daughter and am still teaching English, although it’s now to middle school students (whom I much prefer!!). I have a lot to be grateful for in my life: I have a great family and amazing friends. I live my dream every time I sit down to my computer and work on one of my novels. Maybe someday I’ll be published, but maybe I won’t. That’s why it’s a dream. I have a roof over my head, food on my table, and people in my life who care about me.

My hope is that I’ve lived my life in a way that has shown people that I care about them too, that their happiness and well-being are important to me. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed to any of us, so, before I close, please know that I’m grateful for all the goodness God has blessed me with and that I will continue to try and live my life in a way that shows it. To my family and friends – I love ya. Thanks for being part of my life.

Criminal parents excused?

I completely believe parents should be trusted to raise their children. They should be able (dare I say allowed) to teach them to pray or not to pray; to teach them to value education or not; to teach them to have respect for themselves, for others, for life itself or not to respect anything or anyone. Of course I have my own personal hopes as to what parents will teach their children, but we live in a country where we should have the liberty to approach this all-important role in whatever way we see best.

Here's the big HOWEVER -

Parents should have their children's well-being in mind at all times - their physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Always in all ways. I hold fast to that without exception. Children are the greatest gifts we can be blessed with. We are entrusted with their development as human beings. We owe them the best we have to give.

So, when a father forces his 8-year-old and his 9-year-old daughters to watch hard-core porn online while visiting him at his home, I believe this goes against so many facets of what is good and healthy for children that it's criminal. He is truly harming them in more ways than one.

We should be able to choose whether or not to teach our children to pray, to read, to love, but we should not be allowed to hurt them. (And yes, I believe not teaching them to pray, read, and love hurts them, but stick with me...I hope my point makes sense.)

This man lives in Amarillo, Texas, and there is a public indecency law that is written there in a way that prohibits him from being prosecuted because it was written so that parents could be allowed to teach their children about sex without fear of prosecution for that. It also explicitly says that parents are allowed to show "harmful" material to their children (so that they can teach them about sex, I guess).

My guess is this law was written at a time when sex education was taboo and some parents were catching flak for speaking openly to their children about the whole process. Some legislator took up the cause, wrote a bill, and got a bunch of his friends on board. Voila! It's now legal to talk to your children about sex.

Why in the world couldn't parents have had the implicit right to teach their children about sex (as I believe it should be) without any law being written to protect them while they do that, so that when a criminal exposes his chlidren to hard-core pornography for his own deviate reasons he can be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law? There's an AP story that covers this briefly as well as one from Amarillo.com if you'd like to read more.

The prosecutor has filed charges against the man under a statute that prohibits endangering children. He isn't sure his suit will stand up in court because he has to battle the public indecency one.

To me, this is a case where too much government has tied the hands of law enforcement. Parents should be able to be parents. Criminals should be at the mercy of the law. Period.

My two daughters

I have the rare opportunity to see my daughter in her environment at school (because it's where I work), and it's truly fascinating seeing her in her element there. She's the same Tori I see at home, yet she's not. I know many of you who have children know what I mean, and if they're too young yet to fully grasp it, don't worry - one day all too soon you will.

Tori is the light of my life. She makes me laugh. She fills me with pride. She astonishes me with her wit, her wisdom, and her insight. And every day she brings love to my life. At home, she is familiar to me.

I know what jokes she'll laugh at on TV because they're usually the same ones I laugh at. I know when she'll roll her eyes at Terry because I'm usually rolling mine as well. I anticipate the light in her eyes when she's talking about band or guard or ... Jimmy. I hate the frowns and the tears I've witnessed when friends fail her.

This is my daughter.

Some other creature inhabits her body at school . . . and I don't mean that in a bad way. It's quite interesting, actually.

Tori at school doesn't see me when I'm standing twenty or thirty feet away from her in the hall. It's not that she's ignoring me - I'm just not on her radar. She's still on mine - how else would I be able to tell you that I'm the invisible mother? I watch her come down the stairs, gabbing a mile a minute to her friends, laughing loudly enough sometimes that I can hear her.

I teased her a couple days ago about wanting to chaperone the prom this year because she's going for the first time. I told her how cool I thought it would be if we got to share that "first" of hers together - all night. (It was all tongue-in-cheek, of course, and she knew that - I think!) She made it very clear to me that I was not wanted nor was I needed at the prom. If I was asked to chaperone, she said I had to turn them down. She was denying me entrance into that part of her world. I laughed at her as she squirmed, trying to figure out if I was serious about wanting to come. The daughter-Tori didn't want to hurt my feelings. The school-Tori doesn't care about my feelings. That girl does not want me at that party.

And that's okay with me.

Our kids have to grow up. They have to become individuals and live their own lives. It's what we want for them. It's what we hope we've prepared them to do well. When I see her in the halls at school and she doesn't see me, I know she's on her way. And she's laughing and smiling with friends as she goes.

Prom is her night. I'm staying home.

The flour baby

My daughter is a sophomore and is currently taking the one required trimester of health. It's been an interesting week in that class, for both of us.

On Tuesday, I had to go to the store to buy a five-pound bag of flour which she promptly named Kadence Lily. Yes, she named a sack of flour. Why? you ask. Because for a week she has to pretend it's a baby. It - sorry, Kadence - goes to school with her on Monday, and then she drops her baby off at "daycare," which is her health teacher's room, for the day. When she's performing next weekend with her marching band, guess who gets to babysit. Oh, yes, Grandma Sharon. I am expected to take that sack of flour - sorry again, Kadence - to the competition and sit with it in the bleachers while I watch my daughter perform. I've already scouted the territory of, "Well, what if I just leave it - her - at home? Who's going to know?"

"MOM!" my daughter responded with mock indignation. "You have to take her!"

Yes, my daughter knows it's not a REAL baby. (Even if we did buy some onesies to dress it in. She swears she's not the only one doing that, and I do believe her.) But she wants this to be an authentic experience. She wants to play her part, so I have to play mine out of respect for her. (I'm taking a big tote bag to the band competition and Kadence is going to be at the bottom of that.)

Today, she came home from school and said that she'd been given a handout with diagrams that demonstrated how to do a breast exam on herself.

"Mom, it was an old woman with real saggy boobs and that's just wrong! I didn't need to see that!" We had a good laugh over it. (Especially too, because the handouts had been miscopied and on the flip side were diagrams demonstrating the proper method for checking oneself for testicular cancer. Imagine that in the hands of a 15-year-old girl.)

But after we got done chuckling, I talked to her about how important those self checks can be, and how frustrating they can be. It's difficult to know - at least for me - what's just me and what might be the beginnings of a cancerous tumor. I told her that if she actually started doing them now, maybe by the time that the threat of cancer is a lot more real for her, she'll have a much better idea as to what is her and what isn't. Practice surely helps.

Which got me thinking . . . Isn't that what we, as parents, try to do with our kids? Aren't we trying to teach them - while we have them under the safety of our own roofs - how to handle the twisted, slippery roads of life, both through our own experiences and theirs, as they grow? Don't we want them to practice their decision making skills so that hopefully when they're out on their own they will have honed those skills well enough that they'll keep themselves (relatively) safe, happy, and healthy? Of course that's what we're trying to do.

So bring on the flour babies. I'll babysit Kadence Lily whenever she asks.

Regrets

My daughter and I were talking about serious matters last night, about choices we make in life, about the choices I hope she makes.

I've been honest with her about my life as a teenager in the hopes that maybe she won't make some of the same mistakes I made, that she won't live with some of the same regrets.

She told me she doesn't believe in regret. I responded, "That's only because you haven't lived as long as I have."

I went on to say that I think having regrets is healthy. Our regrets are evidence that we made mistakes, that if we could go back and do things over again, we'd do them differently because we've learned important lessons along the way.

She said that she believes in learning lessons from mistakes, but that you shouldn't dwell on the mistakes, that you shouldn't let them consume you and define who you are. In her mind, regret equals wallowing. I realized that in essence, we were on the same page.

Like her mother, she will make mistakes, and she will (hopefully) learn from them. My regret is that I haven't been able to prevent her from making them in the first place.

For another perspective on this theme, visit Billy Coffey's blog entry, The great front yard experiment. I love the way this guy writes.

It's the little things

My husband and I have been living a credit-crunched life for a while now, as have millions of other people all over the world, so there are many things we don't do that we used to, items we leave on the shelves that we used to put in the cart (even if it was a virtual cart - we do love the Internet and Amazon). But we do still allow ourselves little luxuries once in a while to perk us up, to celebrate a good day.

For example, my fingernails are currently painted with "Plum Seduction." I just did them tonight. (I've never, ever gone looking for a manicure - never had acrylics - nothing. So that's not a luxury I'm missing.) Tori and I went to CVS yesterday to pick up a few things and the makeup section reeled us in pretty quickly. Fingernail polish was on sale, so I bought a couple new colors. (The other is "Red Hot Tomato." I'm saving it for next week.) I like fun colors on my nails and this one definitely is. It was a quick and inexpensive little treat. (Tori got new lipstick, in case you're wondering.)

The other type of treat we often indulge in comes in a variety of colors, sizes, and weights - BOOKS. We all three devour them. I have been using my library card a lot more in the last year or so and not buying as many books as I have in the past. And you know, I've found that I get as much enjoyment out of reading a good borrowed book as I do from owning one. But once in a while, there's just one that I have to have. Plus, I'm a wanna-be author who hopes that people will want to own her books when they're actually on shelves somewhere, and not just borrow them from the library. The Literary Guild had a good sale a couple weeks ago. I bought two and got one free, plus shipping was nominal. I got A Bad Day for Sorry (which EVERYONE is raving about) by Sophie Littlefield, The Birthing House by Christopher Ransom, and Wicked Prey by John Sandford. I'm halfway through Wicked Prey and loving it. Treating myself once in a while to little things like new, playful makeup and highly anticipated books really does make me happy.

But you know what makes me happiest? When my husband comes home safely from another sales call. When my daughter bursts out of the school doors at the end of the day with a smile on her face and stories to tell me at 100 mph. When my five-year-old nephew comes running at me, grinning - my name on his lips, and ready to play. When my mom and dad hug. When my brother smiles - or laughs.

It really is the little things that make me the happiest - and the most grateful that I share this life with these people.