TV Can’t Take all the Blame
Posted
November 10, 2008 at
1:53 pm by
Tricia
On the heels of the July National Institutes of Health report that teen pregnancies rose in the United States for the first time since 1991, a new study from the RAND corporation shows sexual content on television to be strongly associated with teen pregnancy.
Are we surprised? Every parent I know routinely contemplates the over sexualized content of our media and the youth it targets, but what are we really doing about it? I hear mothers and fathers alike complain that little girls’ fashion includes bare belly buttons and plunging neck lines, yet many of these same parents admire the scant frocks and willingly open wallets to indulge a daughter’s desire for hardly-there swimwear and skirts with little more than a hem.
It’s easy to blame TV. It’s much harder to blame ourselves. As our 10-year-olds dress more like 20-year-olds and our female pop culture icons parade pregnant tummies and date adult men, our parental words of wisdom seem to be less and less effective against a world otherwise telling our children that sexy is fun and expected.
Each generation amuses itself by pushing the envelope of decency and values. Elvis and his pelvis, the Beatles’ long hair; Woodstock and free love, Brittany and her school girl pout—it’s a multiplying effect. Parents and social scientists will continue to ask how far is too far, and our children will contemplate their own quagmire when they become adults and begin to see the world with more experienced eyes.
The RAND study’s lead author and behavioral scientist, Anita Chandra, said a central message from the study is the need for more dialogue about sex in the media, particularly among parents and their children. I agree talking to our children is critical but balancing the message from Mom and Dad and the bombardment of conflicting messages from every media outlet is a tough expectation for children during a time when peers are almost as significant as family. Talk is not cheap, but in addition perhaps we need to think about how we can decrease the social acceptability of sexualized marketing campaigns and our children’s consumer choices related to media.
Researchers at the nonprofit organization found that adolescents with a high level of exposure to television shows with sexual content are twice as likely to get pregnant or impregnate someone as those who saw fewer programs of this kind over a period of three years. With teenage pregnancy on the rise, and more and more sex on TV, talking to our children is only one step. We have to actually believe what we’re saying, and follow up with our wallets and our remote controls.
Are you concerned? Share what’s working in your home to help decrease your children’s exposure to sex on TV?
Tags: Parenting, sex and media, Teenage pregnancy |
2 Responses to “TV Can’t Take all the Blame”
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1. Hillary said:
November 10, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
I limit the amount of TV watched here. We don’t buy Barbies or Bratz toys. My kids don’t wear the sweat pants with words on the butt.
That said, even the G programs ooze sex. I had on “Everyday Italian” one day and my 9-year-old said “Mom, why does everything Giada DeLaurentiis wear show her breasts?”
It’s an ongoing, never ending dialogue with our kids. I think it’s about helping foster their self-esteem so they don’t feel like they only way they’ll get someone to like them is through sex or by wearing provocative clothes.
2. Rita said:
November 10, 2008 @ 5:48 pm
We don’t watch much mainstream TV here. The kids watch shows like iCarly and Drake and Josh in the afternoons, but then we’re gone most evenings (taekwondo, usually), and then it’s dinner, homework, showers, reading and bedtime. Our schedules conflict with evening television when I guess that stuff is on.
So, I guess people can get a life, lol, and that would turn the TV off.
We rent shows from Netflix. We started watching the first season of Heroes a couple of months ago. It is a little mature for my nine-year-old, but really that’s the only exposure she has to anything like that, and she’s already demonstrated a very mature sense of self (being a black belt and state champ in extreme martial arts and the “little miss” of our township), so I’m not terribly worried about it.
I am a feminist, so I’m very careful about how we guide our kids (the boy and the two girls). I don’t restrict things like Barbie dolls, but we counter those images with feminist ideas like the Gail Carson Levine books and the real life women she’s with day in and day out, so I believe she has a good balance. We don’t use words or phrases that are degrading to women, either, like slut or bitch. (I also won’t tolerate words like, “gay” or “retarded” to be used as derogatory terms in my presence, either). My children know where the phrase, “rule of thumb” came from and that they can’t use that in my presence because of its history.
I believe that raising people who respect themselves and respect sex is something that starts when they’re children. It begins with self-respect and moves onto respecting other people and the intimate relationship. So, what am I doing? Everything, and I started it back when they were born. I don’t see us having time for evening television for the next ten years or so, either. As television shows run their course, we can look into them and get them from Netflix to watch on our own time.