Parenting - by Darylynn Starr Rank
February, 2006

I was chatting over lunch with a friend the other day. She has a lovely twenty-year-old daughter who does workshops with teenagers on racism and anti-violence and feminism. (Pretty good for twenty, eh?)

We were discussing the incredibly difficult, and steadily getting more difficult,  issue of teaching children about non-violence, non-aggression, and (for girls) not turning yourself into a little Barbie doll!

The conversation ended up on the media, an ongoing issue/problem for so many parents. With freedom of speech coming under attack (I recently saw some painful signs being held up by protesters on the news, essentially saying, “to heck with freedom of speech”), I am torn because part of me wants to censor TV shows, music videos, advertising, and all the rest. But, oh my goodness, part of me knows that letting them be may be the lesser evil.

But what to do about the children?

It’s the children who see the unending media violence. The statistics are horrifying. By the time the average child turns eighteen, he/she will have viewed 200,000 acts of violence on television. That’s two-hundred thousand!  (Huston, A.C., Donnerstein, E., Fairchild, H. et al. Big World, Small Screen: The Role of Television in American Society. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1992.)

The sexual objectification (read ‘lack of clothes’) of females is obvious in almost any music video, and a great deal of other television. Sometimes I think if I see another female detective wearing plunging necklines and spiked heels (on duty, chasing the bad guys!), or another district attorney doing the same in court, I will scream. (And I’m a child of the 60s and 70s in which we were delighted to finally get the freedom to express ourselves however we wanted!) Now when I see pre-pubescent girls all made up and sexualized, I want to weep.

What’s the answer?

A complete switch of world philosophy over to non-violence, peace, acceptance, and kindness would be my dream.  Respect for women (and men, and children, and all the other beings on the planet) in a universe in which they get to own their own vision of their bodies and clothing and identity, instead of the media telling them what they have to be, would be glorious. 

But in the meantime…

I asked my girlfriend how her daughter turned out so well. Non-violent, non-racist, non-sexist. (No, she’s not perfect, just a very cool young woman.). And she watched violent TV when she was growing up, horror movies, sexist music videos. (She’s a dancer, for goodness sakes.). How did my friend handle it?

She said it was complex and difficult and challenging. Of course, it was, but she added one thing she thought was critical.

They talked, she said. Unceasingly, incessantly (and annoyingly, I’m sure).Whenever possible she’d try to watch shows with her daughter, and then they talked. About their reactions, what was good, what was bad. What was honest and respectful and human, and what wasn’t. What was just silly and fun and just pushing the boundaries (“oh, mom, you’re just over-reacting”), versus what was just plain cruel, just plain hate, Her mother chimed in her two-cents again and again. Her daughter argued and fought back. They both did. 

But it was out in the open. Conscious. Aware. And until we get that perfect world I’d love us to have, I think those words, ‘out in the open’, conscious, aware, are critical. They help. They really do. 

So I hope you all keep talking.

Take care, all.

Darylynn Starr Rank (psychologist/writer) works part-time for Family Services of Greater Vancouver as a group facilitator. Her articles appear bi-weekly in The Record (New Westminster) and the Richmond Review.

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