Blog #2 — Protecting Children

In Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture, Sternheimer asks provocative questions in Chapter 2 entitled, “Is Popular Culture Really Ruining Childhood?” On page 22 she asks, “who decides what children should and shouldn’t know (or when they should know it) and whether knowledge itself is dangerous?  Before we convict popular culture, we need to consider whether children and childhood itself have really been damaged.”

I argue that children today are often damaged by the plethoric accessibility of inappropriate media. Children are under siege, pursued as consumers by big business. Pornography and  violent video games are easily accessed media and particularly harmful.  Valued, real relationships with family and friends can suffer because of learned attitudes and behaviors from this damaging entertainment.  Further, addictions can set in, wasting children’s natural gifts and darkening their promising futures.

I submit that families can be “individual ‘forts,’ or separate units” (p35), that shield their children from these real harms of the “larger community”.  Parents must be vigilant in assessing media to determine its value or harm. They must guide their children to pursuits that prepare them for capable and healthy and happy adulthoods.