Great picture in the local paper today, in conjunction with the Penn Relays- the wonderful three days of track and field competition at Franklin Field each year, featuring competitors from grade school to Olympic caliber. Featuring a young woman from our West Catholic High School. A national talent in the 800 meters. Heavily recruited by UCLA, Kansas, Florida, other MegaVersities. Posing in her WC uniform. Ma and Pa standing behind her. Ma looks so proud. Pa appears to have serious attitude- homeboy stay away from my babygirl so she can go to Kansas or UCLA on their dime this means you punk. We like his style. He and Heather's Dad would get along fine. They'd like my late Dad- his favorite phrases: Don't Be Dumb. Don't Do Anything Dumb. Whatever works to get through young skulls full of mush.
AS LONG AS YOU ARE WILLING TO FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT AND NOT GIVE UP OR GIVE IN, MY GRANDKIDS ARE SAFE. YOU AND HEATHER ARE TEACHING THEM THE RIGHT VALUES AND ADDING LARGE DOSES OF LOVE. IT IS WHEN WE DECIDE IT IS TOO MUCH WORK TO DISCIPLINE(READ GUIDE) CHILDREN THAT FAILURE CAN OCCUR. THAT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN ON YOUR WATCH. MY GRANDKIDS ARE WELL SERVED. LOVE, MOM
Preach it, Brother Dale!
Indeed, I think Mr. Culbreath has a very good point.
Any sort of ground between "sensory deprivation tank" and "sewer" seems to be being rapidly eroded... what to do, and how to do it, as our children's lives speed by in front of us?
Enclaves keep sounding better and better to me. We can never be free of sin and sinners in this world (ourselves included), it's true -- but it shouldn't be too much to dream of a Bratz-free childhood for our daughters.
peace,
Do you have a citation for your Cicero quote?
JohnH:
Somewhere in that speech near "Cartago delenda est," though I think it's very free translation.
I don't suppose you looked any further at MGA's website? They also have the "Prayer Angel" dolls - "mini angel ho's" is the best descriptor of the outfits I can think of. Lovely. And my mother was worried about Barbie dolls?
First of all, respectfully, I gotta disagree with the "Look--do I think you're a rotten parent..." comment. I appreciate the desire of solidarity, but such "parents" have betrayed the human race -- hell with 'em. To them I say, "Yes, you are a rotten parent if you buy these things for your kids. You are a pathetic, disgraceful failure as a parent and as a human-being if you let your child have them. Who am I to judge you for buying them? Well, for starters, I'm a MUCH BETTER PARENT THAT YOU WILL EVER BE YOU VILE, CONTEMPTIBLE, IDIOTIC, IRRESPONSIBLE, HATEFUL POSTURING FRAUD, that's who."
BTW, if you go here, you can submit a comment to the company. Feel free. Also, here is there contact info:
MGA Entertainment
16380 Roscoe Blvd., Suite 200
Van Nuys, CA 91406
818-894-2525
What I wrote:
"I'd just like to register my opinion of your "Bratz" line of crack-whore dolls. You are, of course, free to manufacture whatever you want within the law. I wouldn't dream of telling you otherwise. However, I do think it's important for you to know that there are some parents who *don't* want their daughters to grow up to be crack-whores, and that is why we do not buy your products.
Oh, look! Now you have baby crack-whores. Nice! You should get a new corporate slogan. Maybe something like: "MGA Entertainment - We market prostitution and pedophilia to your little girls with STYLE!"
Now, I realize the Japanese 'nippo-trash' thang is trendy right now, but you might want to ask yourself if you really want to propagate a POV that regards 11-year old schoolgirls as the ultimate in sexual desirability. After all, just how distorted and sick does that make you?"
Bubbs, man, don't show all that restraint -- let it all out!
Who am I to judge you for buying them?
"Who do I have to be?" -- Capt. James T. Kirk.
peace,
Here's a short primer on the dysfunctional family.
Some seventeen years ago I became involved with a six year old girl and her family. I was in my post-pagan period, kind of a Christian sleeper cell, and this kid, as it turns out, was God's wake up call.
Well, her mother is a psychological bag of eels with a Branch Davidian background, no less, and the girl had abuse baggage galore. The whole story is long and grim, with bits of sun here and there, but the gist of it is that she is now 23 and the mother of three children. The fathers are two fine, upstanding citizens of the culture of death, suckin' on crack pipes and huffin' butane fumes and all the while ennumerating the myriad ways that the world owes them a living.
Well, the girl, who is not into drugs and not stupid, earned an LPN license, has converted to Catholicism [due to a local missionary's efforts far more than mine], and lives a precarious life in our great and free societal swillhole.
Not being a blood relation, my capacity for influence is limited, but I do whatever I can to keep the kids on course. They, along with their mother, have become my life.
The point of this tearjerker is not self-congratulation. It is simply this: DO NOT BE AFRAID OR EMBARRASSED TO LOVE YOUR CHILDREN. WATCH THEM CLOSELY. TALK TO THEM. GUARD THEM FROM THE SPIRITUAL PIGSTY OUTSIDE YOUR FRONT DOOR. WATCH WHO THEY PLAY WITH, WHAT THEY WATCH ON TV, WHAT TOYS THEY WANT. KEEP THEM AS INNOCENT AS YOU CAN, DO NOT BE COWED BY THEIR TEARS OR DISCOURAGED BY THEIR WHINING, AND DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT BACK DOWN IN MATTERS OF DISCIPLINE AND ESPECIALLY SPIRITUALITY.
If you fail to do this, you will answer for your failure in a million ways, most of which you cannot even imagine.
Bubbles, that's a creepy sounding address. "Roscoe Blvd."? In Van Nuys, which just so happens to be the porn film capital of CA? Coincidence? We should find out about their neighbors...
(PS- I happen to know that little factoid because it appears in the "making of" documentary on the Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow DVD. Really.)
-Marc
At least Barbie had various careers to go along with the gravitationally improbable breasts.
Thank you for this fine rant, Dale. I despise those Bratz and My Scene dolls. I have trained my children to call them Hootchie Mama dolls, and there is no doubt in their minds that said dolls are bad and ugly. They know that said dolls will never be allowed in our home. I will do whatever I can to keep our culture from sexualizing my six year-old daughter.
Standing O from MamaT, Dale!
We toed the line pretty hard with Zteen--severe television limitation and homeschooling!
Now, helping a single mom raise the McKid, it is immensely harder than it was just 15 years ago. I think it also doesn't help that the very MOST objectionable toys are aimed at little girls. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of objectionable toys to go around, but the most offensive to ME are the girl toys. (Maybe because I'm a girl???)
I love the American Girl dolls--my niece has one of the baby dolls and has played with it for YEARS. But they are wildly expensive. She wouldn't have one if it hadn't been a Christmas gift. When she goes to Target it's a constant fight: "No, you can't have that. No, you can't have that......." And don't get me started on clothes! Sigh..
My sister and I have this discussion all the time, though. In the past, we've wanted to do everything we could "without turning them into dweebs." Well, it time to drop considerations like that and just accept that we are gonna look like dweebs to the rest of the world. Shrug.
Amen, Mama T. I have tried raising my kids without resorting to being a dweeb, but have found it impossible. Just having what would have been average standards of morality 40 years ago now makes you a total religious fanatic.
My two children are in Catholic schools, watch little television, and do not listen to the radio at all, yet this year my 10 yo has come home repeating dirty jokes and quoting the lyrics to vulgar rap songs. Never mind the offense to her innocence she picked up in the school-mandated "health class".
Next year we are homeschooling. If this makes me a freak, so be it.
"do I think you're a rotten parent if you get your kids this stuff? No."
i beg to differ, sir. but, i think it was benny franklin who once declared "you can't please all of the people all of the time, so screw 'em."
I also hate to be "judgmental" - the byword for our times - but for the life of me I am flabbergasted that any parent with the slightest interest in a minimum daily allowance of decent upbringing for their brood would ever purchase this stuff.
That being the case - keep me away from the bricks and wood screws.
i beg to differ, sir. but, i think it was benny franklin who once declared "you can't please all of the people all of the time, so screw 'em.
It was Abe Lincoln who said that first part. Although I believe Franklin probably did say "screw 'em." He got around a lot in colonial Philadelphia.
In my thirty-plus years on Our Mother Earth, I've seen every side and every spectrum of good and bad parenting. I can safely say that I would rather drive the aforementioned wood screws into my own eyes than let my children play with those vapid, time wasting, mind-emptying excuses for entertainment. If anything, they make great kindling when my wife and I go camping.
The simple fact is that the B----es that they call Bratz are just the latest in a line of so called "fun toys" that are designed to make kids and their parents feel that they have to have them. If little Amy doesn't have them, then she isn't worth anything and "I don't think that I want my child associated with her." If that's the case, then be my guest. You can continue to let your daughters play with these wastes of space and plastic while I teach mine the joys of using the ultimate toy: Their Imagination! Just don't come crying to me when your fourteen-year-old hoochie mama of a kid is knocked up with her second child. Hey, the Bratz had zip to do with that...right?
Blessed Be
Tony
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