Home of Today's Common Sense

Published in The Brownsville Herald – Mother’s Day 5-14,2006
While traveling by car for the last month or so I noted a very disturbing radio advertisement for Saturn Automobiles.
Essentially, Saturn is encouraging the purchase of their vehicle with a DVD player so that the parent would not have to answer questions from their children; because when children watch movies they don’t ask questions. The poor judgment in this was amplified frequently, when a public service announcement advocating the use of every possible chance with their children to provide “learning moments” immediately followed.
The sad thing is, I have yet to see any indication, from any source, that there is anything wrong with the shutting communications off to our kids with a movie.
While our children were growing up, I remember many questions that I often thought were designed to show how dumb mom and dad were, and while I like to think we acquitted ourselves well, I am sure that mom made more of the “learning moments” than I did.
On one occasion, my son inquired as to how radios worked; and I remembered what my dad did when I asked him the same question, 50 years earlier. My dad told me that when you want to know something as detailed as radio, (most things I asked turned out to be detailed) we must go to the library and look it up.
So my son and I went and looked it up!
We found the basics of a crystal radio, then purchased the parts and built one from scratch. Amazingly, it worked the first time.
After that small success, it dawned on me that my dad was indeed much smarter than I gave him credit for.

My favorite columnist Ruben Navarrette addressed the issues that result from not being there, in his column “Many Parents forget their primary duties” published on January 5, 2005. He described two movies and real life circumstances that pointed out the lengths parents have had to go in order to retrieve lost control over their children. The theme of the article was, to be better parents and do it early enough in their children’s lives so that it makes an impact. Though his article was focused primarily on discipline; and encouraged parents to “Lay down the rules to your kids when they’re 5 or pay the price when they’re 15.”
In another of his columns on October 24, 2004, “Parents can’t buy children’s respect” Mr. Navarrette pointed out the disasters that happen when a parent tries to be a pal to the kids, in an attempt to correct the situations that arose in their own lives, when their parents withheld the approval that they needed and looked to them to provide.
What was really needed were real parents, firmly guiding their young folks forward, setting fair – firm rules, enforcing the good with approval and providing firm correction when necessary.
I submit that showing your children the respect of answering questions as honestly and as straight forward as possible, even facetious ones, is just as important and provides opportunities to contribute to a healthy attitude.
As amazing as it may seem in this adversarial world, I have often found that, when you show respect, it is often returned; and over a period it can become habitual.
I often see folks with opposing views, on a few issues, feeling the need to resort to an attack of the opposition personally; rather than to research the issues thoroughly and debate them respectfully. The result is that, the messenger is executed rather than a solution discovered, and any potential to resolve problems in the future are lessened.
We see this every day and in nearly every part of society.
I submit that when attitude, educational, or discipline problems appear, we will often see parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents etc; who could have answered a few more questions.
This is especially important when young folks for one reason or another are separated from family. A complete family and an extended family is even better. When I was growing up my grandparents were more successful than today’s mental health professionals at fixing my neuroses.
While the parents cannot be blamed for everything that goes wrong, they can certainly make great strides to improve the chances that the kids have at leading a happy life by not getting the auto DVD player and taking advantage of every “learning moment”.
Our kids are our first and most important responsibility.