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Jewish World Review /Dec. 18, 1998 /29 Kislev, 5759
Dr. Laura
Parents afraid of firm values leave their children adrift
"STRIPPER ACCUSED OF FONDLING GIRLS AT PARTY" was the headline on an
Associated Press story released Thanksgiving week. A male stripper was arrested
on felony lewd conduct charges, accused of fondling at least four female
teen-agers during his routine.
Well, how disgusting. What a creep! Hang him up by his G-string! But wait a
minute. How did this naked guy force himself on FOUR girls in a room of 50?
Wouldn't the other girls come to the rescue?
Then, an even more important question: What was a male stripper doing at a
party for 15-year-old girls anyway?
Keep reading the story, and you get to the word "chaperoned." It turns out
this party was at the HOME of one of the girls, and her mother helped
orchestrate this paid event, billed as "Girls Night Out" on leaflets distributed
at the high school. There was a charge for admission. The evidence is clearly
represented by party photos taken of the night's festivities.
The events included one young "lady" who paid the stripper $20 for the
privilege of performing oral sex on him. (I wonder if the stripper's defense
attorney will use the definition of sex from President Bill Clinton's personal
lexicon. "Look, Mom, no hands," meaning the stripper may have been
"inappropriate," but this can't be called "sex.")
Partygoers told the police that the mother was involved in hiring the
stripper. The mother says her daughter hired him without her knowledge. One
thing for sure, the mother was there for the events and didn't stop them. The
mother, by the way, is being arraigned on a felony charge of exposing minors to
lewd material. Amen!
After reading the whole story, I frankly found the headline shocking. The
main point to the headline writer was the male stripper fondling "girls" ---- as
though he assaulted innocent minors. That is clearly misleading and diminishes
the true horror of the incident. A parent of teen-age girls thought it was
acceptable to throw a prepaid party with a male stripper and stood by while one
guest paid to perform a "Monica" on him, as though this were a variation on
bobbing for apples.
When the mother was confronted, her defense was that she "only let him
continue his act to avoid embarrassing her daughter." Can you believe that? The
mother cooperated in this disgusting situation in order that her daughter would
not feel embarrassed? Yet she wasn't embarrassed to provide a paid-for-hire
naked guy, gyrating vulgarly, finally prostituting himself as public
entertainment for a bunch of immodest, inappropriately sexualized, immature
girls?
Something frightening has happened to family culture when parents are more
worried about their children's image, social status, peer acceptance and
immediate sense of happiness than their children's values and morals. A
significant portion of our nation's parents are more focused on their children's
happiness than on their character development.
Not only does this shocking event underscore this fact, I hear it every day
on my radio program. Parents call to ask:
"Should I report my adult son/daughter to the police for forging my
signature on checks?"
"Should I pay for my 17-year-old daughter's 20-year-old boyfriend to come
live here? She is so unhappy without him."
"Should I get my 16-year-old daughter breast implants? She'd be so much
happier."
"Should I tell my drug-abusing 18-year-old son who brings home girls
overnight that he needs to move out? I'm afraid he's a bad influence on the
younger children."
"Should I get an attorney and fight my daughter's high school for barring
her from graduation because she broke the rules and got drunk with her prom
friends? I don't want her to miss graduation."
In all cases the parents tell me that they are loath to make their kids
"unhappy," diminish their "self-esteem" or hurt the parent-child "rapport." I
remind them that the only thing which stands between the rest of society and a
self-centered, undisciplined, disrespectful, characterless human being is a
parent willing to accede to behavior that would not have been tolerated by
parents even a generation ago.
This deplorable and destructive situation is due to several factors. Parents
afraid to exercise authority and dictate right and wrong are examples of
tolerance run amok. Not all behavior is created equal, unlike people, who are.
Their fear is due to their guilt about providing chaotic lives for their
children with broken homes, full-time day care, shacking up, frequent moves, and
their own self-centered careers and lifestyles.
Where adults do not value obligation and sacrifice, children never learn to
elevate their own lives through self-discipline and adherence to values. Left on
their own, they become potential cast members for "Lord of the
12/11/98: Spread righteousness by refusing to accept the 'code'