The death of innocence

I hate to sound like an alarmist prude, but our children are in trouble.

No, I'm not afraid of violent video games, bloody movies, sex on basic cable or the hovering spectre of RAP MUSIC…what frightens me most, what makes me fear for the future of humanity…is cynicism.

I remember distinctly being in the eighth grade – there was a controversy over clothing that affected the entire population of our school. A ban was put in place, and ignoring the ban was fodder for an immediate suspension. What clothing was horrific enough to engender such a response in the Cincinnati Public School system? Simpsons t-shirts. Yes, that's right, the garment that struck terror into the district's leadership was a simple, modest shirt bearing the likeness of Bart Simpson and the words "Bart Simpson: Underachiever".

Oh, for those simpler days. Lo these long…oh…let's say fifteen years ago…something like the championing of pride in substandard achievement was cause for panic. Nowadays if our third-graders aren't pregnant and addicted to PCP we don't care what kind of shirt they wear. I have regularly seen ten-year-olds in what we used to call short-shorts (they now refer to them by the ever-so-ambiguous name "booty shorts") with various sayings printed directly on the ass. Sayings such as "Juicy", "Tease" and "Tight". For the record, if I as a legal adult were to admit publicly to thinking of a ten-year-old's ass as "tight", I would not only be arrested, but would have to spend the rest of my life introducing myself to my neighbors as a sex offender. So one may ask, logically, if this is inappropriate for an adult to think, why is it appropriate for a ten-year-old to advertise? And one might come to the conclusion, logically, that it isn't. Children are becoming jaded and cynical at a far earlier age than they used to, and about things like sex, which used to be the most shocking subject an adolescent could think of.

In a thoroughly unscientific manner, I have traced the beginning of this trend on the "teen idol" phase of the late 1990s. At that time the record industry, in order to try to broaden the audience for acts like Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson from exclusively teenage girls to the general public, began selling their starlets as sex symbols. Of course, this raised sales (among other things) in men from their twenties through middle-age. The problem is, the original intended market for those singers were still hanging on their every word. Seeing their idols dolled up like porn stars and sold as virtual whores on MTV, a whole generation of young girls were taught that this is the way to gain attention, to get the money and fame that they had been told were what they should strive for, and to get boys. And thanks to outlets like Radio Disney, that message was spread to younger and younger children.

Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with kids emulating their idols, and I certainly don't think that celebrities should be tied into a "think about the children!" goody-goody image if that's not who they are. But I do think that the marketing machine, which controls so much of what we see and hear, has a responsibility to watch out for their most vulnerable markets. It's just good business sense – if you're selling sex to kids, those kids are more likely to get knocked up, severely hampering their ability to finish school, which limits their job opportunities, thereby reducing their ability to purchase goods and services. One would think that the advertising machine would be tripping over itself to make kids as intelligent as possible, so they can all be doctors and lawyers and buy all of the Jaguars and Bang Olafson stereo equipment they could ever want.

It's not that I worry about the moral fiber of our society. The moral fiber of our society is so fucked from so far on high that worrying about children is almost moot. I'm worried for the kids themselves. There is a certain amount of childhood that you miss out on when your innocence and ignorance are stripped away. The current trend toward irony, sarcasm and out-and-out dark cynicism ("could this show be any stupider?") are robbing kids of the wide-eyed enthusiasm that used to be the hallmark of childhood. Movies like Shrekand the millions of other made-in-an-hour CGI animated films try to cash in on the edginess of their medium by pushing edginess in their stories, dialogue, characters and general attitude. When the stars of the recent movie Ice Age 2: The Meltdownwent on the talk show circuit to promote the movie (rated G, marketed in kids' meals at Burger King), they brought along a clip with two mastodons discussing repopulating the species (quoth the female, "You ain't repopulating the species tonight, or any other night!"). How is this appropriate for their target audience? If the filmmakers consider this a wink-and-a-nod joke for the benefit of parents that will go over the kids' heads, they are severely underestimating how savvy kids today are.

Reading through this essay as I prepare to publish, I realize that I sound like a bit of a fuddy-duddy, and that this may seem to contradict my normal attitudes and opinions. Regardless, though, of who I am now, I still cherish those innocent days when I believed what I was told, when most of life was a mystery to me, and when I was sheltered from the harsh realities of the world. It seems that the nest is getting smaller and smaller these days, and the chicks are being pushed out nearly as fast as they can hatch.