*Side Note*
I know that I am supposed to be continuing my 3 part series on “Don't be a Christian Appliance” but I've had something on my mind that I just haven't been able to remember to post until someone reminds me of the idea.
Enough with my vague-ality I might as well just get into the what it is that has got me side-tracked. Recently a couple of friends and I went out to see the “The Town” (That new Ben Affleck movie that takes place in Boston and centers around back robbery) which is rated 'R' for different reasons, but the 2 that float to the surface the fastest are language and violence. Pluggedin.com states, “The f-word tally exceeds 150,” with the run-time only being 125 minutes, that means that they said the f-word more than once a minute throughout the movie. I just want to dispel any judgment on the movie because of the language issue, if you ask anyone who lives in or grew up in Boston or close to it will tell you that (as hard as it is to believe) that's just how they talk out there. My in-laws are “Mass-holes”, trust me when I say I can back up this statement with credible references, and no they don't drop the f-bomb every minute (actually the never do) but they know what goes on back there... experience.
Where was I? The Town, great movie but has a slight language problem and is a little violent. The violence is nothing out of the ordinary for a present day bank-robber type crime movie: Car chases (with explosions), shoot-outs, beatings and pistol-whippings, so nothing that I haven't seen in my 8+ years of watching rated 'R' movies. But this isn't the problem, hopefully you've caught on to that by now.
My friends and I walked into the theater, on a Saturday night, and throughout the mandatory commercials we talked and caught up on any current news in our lives. Not until the previews started, had I noticed the travesty that was taking place right in front of me... I had almost eaten all my sour patch watermelon candy?! I couldn't believe that I just spent $4.00 on a bag of candy that was practically empty by the time the previews started! Nevertheless I ate the last few slices and dumped the sour-sugar coating that had collected at the bottom of the bag into my mouth when I noticed something else... something worse than my candy running out. We were surrounded by families, families with children... FAMILIES WITH SMALL CHILDREN, I'M TALKING 3-5 YEAR OLDS!
I couldn't believe it, I literally stood up and looked around me during the previews. I counted 3 separate families that had brought their kids to see this movie. Once the movie started I can, for the first time, honestly say that I wanted to smack a woman in her face. Why? Because she was shhhh-ing her kids during the movie, she actually told them to, “be quiet and watch the movie!” Once I realized that by smacking this woman in the face I would be doing nothing but smacking her in the face it made me think, "Smacking this woman wouldn't make her realize her faults, it wouldn't make her think over her decision, and it wouldn't make her take her kids and bring them into theater 3 where they were showing “Alpha and Omega” (that cartoon wolf movie)." I knew smacking her in the face would do nothing but give me a few minutes of gratification, but it wouldn't help the kids that were being forced to watch a movie that was (in every sense of the word) wrong for them to be watching.
Don't get me wrong, I'm normally not a violent person, but this was too much for me. I tried putting myself in their shoes and thinking HOW could anyone come to the conclusion that bringing their children to a rated 'R' movie would be appropriate? I thought about it throughout the entire preview section until I finally came to an answer: IT ISN'T! But what do you do? Should I have called Child Protective Services (CPS), told the manager of the theater, or tried to talk some reason into the families? I was absolutely appalled into a state of shock.
I teach, at the moment, so I am surrounded by kids (every age group) for half the year. I see the differences in children/students that have parents that are involved in every part of their lives. I see how easy it is for children/students to do whatever they want: interrupt you when you are teaching a lesson, call another student a name that they don't even know the meaning of, but heard Stewie call Peter it on the last episode of “Family Guy”, or be completely oblivious to the consequences of their choices. Am I saying that I only see this in the grade that I teach, no, but I do see it pretty much in every grade in school. A wave of disrespect, irresponsibility and entitlement has swept over this generation and is strangling the common sense out of them. Teachers then talk to parents about their child's/student's behavior and the parents say, “I don't know where he/she gets it from.”
The saddest part of this post is that this wasn't the first time and we all know this won't be the last time I run into something like this. I can count a handful of times I have seen underage kids in movies that have no business watching, or talking about a TV show they watch that I know the jokes or theme is geared toward adults, or bragging about their high-score on a video game that should even be discussed by them. Far too many times am I out late at night and have to stop by Wal-Mart (mostly out of convenience since it's late) to pick something up, and who do I 
see trudging through the aisle? Yep, you guessed it, a small kid or small children hanging on to their parent's hand, belt loop or just half asleep in the cart. I know it's not like I should think that I can walk into a Wal-Mart of all places and get a good image of solid parenting, but I'm talking 11-12pm at night. Isn't the answer as simple as: if you have children and you want to go see a rated 'R' movie you have to get a baby-sitter. If you don't get a baby-sitter, you don't go. If you don't get a baby-sitter, you don't say, "Grab the kids, we're going anyway!"
Having children is a privilege and a sacrifice, you can't just make them into adults and then back into children whenever you want. The thought crossed my mind sitting in the movie theater, "I wonder what's worse: Keeping the kids in the theater watching 'The Town', or sending them off to a theater all by themselves to watch a kids movie?!" Then I realized this question should never have to be asked!
Let me just end this rant/rave by simply saying, if this is how we parent our children what type of society can we expect in the next 20-30 years?
1 comment
Outrageous, I say. I see things like this all the time - especially at the movie theater. When I say all the time, I'm referring to the last few years. It's only gotten worse. It's probably best you didn't say anything to the lady with the kids. I've realized, painfully, that trying to point out bad parenting to any 'parent' is cause for them to tell you how YOU don't have a right to tell them how to parent.
I ran into this with my sister many years ago when she was carting around a Playboy bunny purse in front of her 4 year old and I tried to explain to her that he may not understand what that is yet but that he is going to grow up relating that symbol with comfort and normalcy - and that's dangerous, especially when they get older. But it's the same with the movies - or anything else that's inappropriate for certain age levels. The more you expose them to it, the number they'll get and then they'll take the influence they've found in these movies, symbols, music, etc, and carry it with them into the school system to pollute everyone else's kids with it.
These bad parents out there think they have it altogether and that they are the cat's meow when really they're just setting a horrible standard for parenting that I am really hoping doesn't get any worse over the next few years.
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