Feb. 25, 2006: Not ready for raunchy

Originally appeared in The News & Observer:

With its parental-advisory label warning of "explicit content," the latest Blink-182 CD isn't one I would have let my children buy. It showed up in my house as a present, a bootleg birthday bonanza of bona fide filth.

The fellow eighth-grader who gave it to my daughter also was kind enough to include some of Blink's previous delightful ditties, one of which was titled, "[Penis] Lips."

If you are a parent who thinks it's fine for middle-schoolers to be hooked up to MP3 players dispensing such gems directly into their ear canals, I have to ask:

What are you thinking?

My 11-year-old son recently was invited to a birthday party for a girl turning 12. The invitation requested that I drop off my child at a movie theater and pick him up later at the girl's house. There was no mention of what movie was on the agenda. I -- gasp -- called and asked, because my children don't see a PG-13 movie unless I have seen it first.

The girl's mother said they'd be seeing "Cheaper by the Dozen 2" because it was the only movie showing at the time that was rated PG. I was ecstatic. Another mother was actually on my parenting page.

Or not. The highlight of the after-party at the house was a deejay playing all the latest hits, which included, among other tasty tidbits, "Laffy Taffy," a rap song that equates male genitalia to hard candy.

"It was the cleaned-up version, Mom," my son said so earnestly on the way home. "Cleaned up" in this instance means they took out the obscenities. It doesn't mean they took out all of the wink-wink, nudge-nudge euphemisms for every sexual act imaginable.

Again, I must ask, what are parents thinking?

A neighbor child, two years younger than my sixth-grade son, has been exposed to R-rated movies apparently since birth. My son routinely asks whether he can see this or that movie over at the house of the other child, who nearly always has already seen the movie in question, regardless of its rating.

I had to disappoint my son, yet again, this month when I said no to a PG-13-rated skateboarding flick. "It just has cuss words, and the make-out scenes aren't that bad," said the fourth-grader, reassuringly.

Um, no. No, no, no, no!

What are you people thinking?

Ah, but there's the problem. Many parents aren't thinking. Thinking requires energy and time and commitment and a willingness, when you act upon your thinking, to make your children unhappy. Giving in is easy, turning a blind eye a snap. Having high standards of what's appropriate -- and sticking to them -- is not.

I realize that I can't protect my children from a world gone what I consider positively insane when it comes to what we expose our children to -- and what we let them expose to us from their extra-low-rise blue jeans. How many butt cracks and "muffin tops" can one shopping mall hold? All I can do is pray that I've given my children a firm foundation from which they can grow into admirable people who make good choices. It's a tough-enough journey without other parents creating unnecessary mudholes for us to slog through.

There's a reason some music is labeled with a parental advisory.

There's a reason certain movies are rated PG-13 and R.

It shouldn't be unreasonable to expect other adults to understand that.

Burgetta Eplin Wheeler is assistant editor of The N&O's Q section, which appears on Sundays.