According to a recent article in The Christian Science Monitor, moms say pop culture is counteracting their ability to instill good values in their children up through high school. Here’s an excerpt:

      What’s really happening with American mothers of all stripes – from full-time homemakers to full-fledged workaholics, all income levels, all racial backgrounds – is worry about popular culture, and what feels like a tsunami of forces threatening parents’ ability to impart positive values to their children, according to a new survey of more than 2,000 mothers. Moms report a cultural onslaught that goes far beyond Hollywood movies and TV, and into the world of the Internet, electronic games, and advertising.

      ”We heard mothers talking about the kind of hypersexuality that’s out there, about violence and disrespect, about body image, all the things that are not exactly news, but cutting across a huge and diverse sample of mothers,” says Martha Farrell Erickson of the University of Minnesota, lead researcher on the study, released by the Institute for American Values in New York. “What they would really like to see is mothers and fathers joining forces more effectively to take on some of these issues.”

      First of all, I take issue with any news that comes out the Christian Science Monitor because their religion is stupid. I don’t openly hate most religions, but these douchebags suck. They’re the ones that don’t believe in going to hospitals or using medicine because if God wants you to live, he’ll cure you. How do they know God didn’t use His power of divine inspiration to help us invent modern health care? More importantly, I don’t know for sure what else they don’t believe in. Maybe Christian Scientists don’t believe in things like “researching facts” or “checking sources” either because they think God should do that for them too. The only religions that are more bullshit than Christian Science are Scientology and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Scientology sucks because they gave us that shitty Battlefield Earth movie where John Travolta dressed up like Rob Zombie and tried to conquer Earth but humanity stopped him. Sadly, the people of Earth were unable to stop Travolta from doing Staying Alive. Also, the real Rob Zombie could conquer our planet at any given moment if he felt like it. In my opinion, Jehovah’s Witnesses are even worse. Any religion that forbids its followers from eating birthday cake needs to be personified and promptly hanged.

      Secondly, it’s not particularly fair or accurate to say that pop culture itself is the problem. One mother talks about trying to protect her child from bad influences by renting Sesame Street DVDs. Well, not only is Sesame Street on the fucking television, it is also PART of pop culture. Every red-blooded American knows who the fuck Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and Elmo are. Pop culture is a combination of both new and old. The Ramones didn’t stop being part of our collective consciousness when Family Guy entered it. In fact, Family Guy is little more than a string of non-sequitur pop culture references that includes everything from Charlton Heston to Thundercats and it’s one of the most beloved shows on television. People who whine about the content of television probably don’t deserve to own one. If you get all upset that CSI isn’t approproate for your children, change the damn channel. It really is that simple. You have channels like Disney, Nickelodeon, and ABC Family that are very appropriate for children and they’re part of most basic cable packages. If that isn’t good enough, you can order premium packages that include channels such as Toon Disney, Noggin, Nickelodeon GAS, and Discovery Kids to keep Fifty Cent off your TV. If you want to block a channel, your cable box can do that. If you want to block shows intended for a mature audience, the V-chip can do that. Lawmakers have done enough. Stop your fucking complaining

      That being said, pop culture is far from perfect. Always has been, always will be. And yes, it may have gotten slightly worse recently. There is absolutely no reason that Paris Hilton should have the name recognition that she does. But whatever. For every Paris Hilton, there’s a Ronald McDonald, Coca-Cola Santa Claus, and Regis Philbin to counteract it. Trying to blame something as vague as pop culture, something that covers almost every aspect of media, is just a cheap attempt to diffuse blame from your own piss-poor parenting skills. Many of the people that these whiny mothers look to for moral discourse such as President Bush, Joe Lieberman, and Jerry Falwell are pop culture icons in their own right. Paradoxical, isn’t it?

       In summation, I would just like to say this: Fuck you, you lazy maternal fucks. Pop culture rocks.