"Our children are our only hope for the future, but we are their only hope for their present and their future."--Zig Ziglar

Those of you who know me in real life know that I am a fairly strict parent. And those of you who know my mother know why... I don't have cable TV. My children do not have cell phones. They do not have access to the internet without supervision. Even my child who has an iPod Touch has very limited access on that. I don't do this because this is a household where we use words like "H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks" in the presence of the little ones. I like to say fuck and do so without much censoring. Those of you who do not know me, may have started using your judgment about how I raise my children starting in the last 45 seconds.

Let me be clear. I want my kids to be kids. As innocent as they can be for as long as possible. That's why I control what they watch and listen to. My twins are 14 and my baby girl is 12. I've managed to raise well-balanced, well-adjusted girls on my own, and not because of any real secret well of knowledge. I'm just honest with them. REAL honest. I don't baby them or sugarcoat things for them. They know that the time will come for them to see those things and say those words and it's up to them to do so responsibly when the time and maturity calls for it. Just like sex. Which I know they're going to have and I talk to them about that as well...and contraception and disease and abstinence and abortion.

Now, onto the point of this post. I try not to judge the way other people raise their kids because I don't like it done to me. But I have to get this one off of my chest. Last week I went to watch Sex & The City 2 as so many of you surely have. I did not get to enjoy the movie as much as I'd liked to have due to the woman with her three very young kids sitting on front of me also watching Samantha get fucked on the hood of a car.  These kids ranged in the ages of say 6 through maybe 11.I was appalled and disgusted. Said mother made ONE attempt to shield ONE child's eyes for ONE of the sex scenes. By the time the rest rolled around, she was too engrossed in the movie to be bothered.

Fast forward to today when I see a YouTube video making it's round of a sweet little girl who has been made up to do a cover of Lady Gaga's 'Telephone' video. Look, I'm just going to say this bluntly. I'm sick of people prostituting their kids for money & their own 15 minutes of fame. That child looked just as confused as I felt watching the minute I was able to sit through. Enough is enough already! And before you go getting all defensive, you tell me...? Do you think a kid that young has the capacity to ask to do something like that? I can assure you she does not.

We live in a world of instant information & so-called reality TV and this shit is killing the age of innocence. The window for kids staying kids is practically non-existent and it is NOT the media's fault. The media would not stand as it is if people weren't eating this shit up with double fists. WHY would you allow your babies to watch this stuff?? This is NOT a call for censorship for artists either. I personally, LOVE the Gaga video. My children, however, DO NOT get to see it  until they are older. And if they came across it from one of their little dipshit friends bringing their own phones/iPods or whatever to school, we then discuss what they saw and why it is inappropriate imagery for kids.  Lady Gaga has every right to make whatever kind of videos she wants. She is a GROWN UP. That being the key word here to those of you still not catching my drift.

If you think for one second that the group of little girls gyrating to 'Single Ladies' at that dance competition (you all saw that video, I'm sure) didn't have an adult lead the way to that mess, you're delusional. Now we've got untalented adults choreographing their babies to do this stuff because they missed their own chances at the brass ring that is Fame. What is this sick obsession with fame anyway? Don't you see how this plays out when a child is forced to find acceptance and approval from the people sitting on the other side of the screen??? These kids end up filling our magazines and talk shows with all of their desperate cries for attention when the star fades. Tally it up. Old and young. Britney. Lindsay. The entire cast of Diff'rent Strokes. That Frankenstein of a human once known as Heidi Montag. Corey Haim. Brittany Murphy.That is but a mere few. A drop in the bucket of the victims of this insanity.

The worse part is that I'm not even sure it'll get worse before it gets better. I think we're in a permanent down slide folks. I can't tell you how many little girls I've spoken to whose loftiest goal is to become the next Miley. What the hell happened to little girls wanting to be the next President or doctors or surgeons? I think girls are at the worse risk too. When you get your self esteem from showing your ass, we have a serious problem. Young women today have become so detached that oral sex isn't even considered sex anymore! It's in the same family as kissing. Seriously.  This whole thing has me fired up.

I've gotten into countless battles with my own reality-TV-obsessed mother about not letting my twins model. I'm sorry but they need to develop self-love and respect FIRST so that IF and when THEY decide that is something they ever want to do, they'll understand the difference between love and the "adoration of fans." I want my daughters to understand that their heart and their soul is what makes them beautiful, not how skinny, popular or rich they are. And should they decide to pursue acting or modeling, I will gladly support that decision. AFTER they've had the chance to be little girls. Why is this such a hard thing for so many people to understand anymore?? And what is it going to take to make people realize that if we don't change the way things are going, the future of the young women in this country is dismal.

We have got to do a better job at protecting our children from this stuff and stop pimping them to fulfill some unrealized dreams of our own. Start teaching our kids that fame isn't some magical solution to having a perfect life. It doesn't answer ALL the questions. Who the hell wants to have all of their mistakes documented and judged and ridiculed anyway? Because that is what ultimately happens.

Maybe the process of this whole thing isn't so black and white but those are my kids. I'm doing whatever it takes to take care of THEM. It'd be nice to see more parents doing the same. It's that simple. Rant over.