One of the wisest parenting decisions we made was not to have braodcast television in our house (we had a TV set we brought out to view videos.) Not only did we avoid having social garbage dumped into our family life, but we didn't have "The Great Displacer" sucking up our time. This enabled us to spend time relating, sharing, and giving to each other. (Also, our kids all developed a great love of reading!)

Once we had a guest speaker in for one of our pro-life dinners. She was sitting off in a corner polishing her talk, which gave her an opportunity to observe my daughters interrelating as they put the finishing touches on their hair and outfits. After watching for a while, the speaker asked them, "Are you home schooled?" They answered that they weren't, which puzzled the speaker. "Are you sure?" she asked. "There's something about you - a 'brightness' about your nature." "Well," offered one of my daughters, "We don't have a television." "That's got to be it!" the speaker announced.

I've never forgotten that witness. When new parents observe how balanced and mature my now-grown chidren are, and ask for our "secret", I tell them regular family prayer and no television. Very few have taken our advice completely.

I need to make more time for editorials like this. Our world is slowly coming apart and we don't even see it.

A lot of us see and FEEL what social media is doing to us. It has us buying new clothing every season, eating poor quality food, behaving aggressively with a clear conscience. These things are magnified in our teenagers. Teens are developmentally vulnerable. Thus, they are the media's target. Indeed, they are the hottest market out there. Their drive to fit in, grow up, be cool, etc... makes them the perfect target. They have disposable money and the market takes it from them by the fistful. Pop culture (from food to clothing to music) has inundated our youth with what they developmentally crave: sex. We see the over sexed world, we hear the foul language, we receive the unbelievably rude, trashy comments from their angry mouths. ..we don't like it, we try to reign it in, but verse the media and peers its no contest...can we win this fight? How? A movement? Puts a new spin on "Save the Children" and "We are the World"