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Making America's Family Rooms Safe
By: Mark Merrill
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Do you find yourself spending more and more time screening movies to determine if they're appropriate for your children? Or figuring out how to keep harmful e-mails away from your home? Or maybe you're searching for something that your children can actually watch on television, or music they can listen to?

Any parent who is at least somewhat engaged in his or her children's lives certainly answers, "Yes!" to one or all of these questions.  More and more, parents who are connected to their children have to spend significant amounts of time addressing these issues.

The demands on parents to spend more time and energy protecting their children is increasing in direct proportion to the supply of harmful ammunition being unloaded by the so called "entertainment industry."  Shielding our children from this cultural barrage not only requires great skills, but also an enormous amount of time.

A recent study by the Parents Television Council reported that the first hour of prime-time television, which previously could be trusted for family-safe viewing, was shown to have a 78% increase in coarse language and 70% increase in violence compared to just two seasons ago.

And earlier this year, NBC's entertainment division president, Scott Sassa, announced that NBC has no plans to launch any television series that might be considered family entertainment because these shows don't appeal to their target audience.  Even TV analyst Steve Sternberg recently told USA Today that, "If you have kids, there ain't much on network TV you can watch without being embarrassed."

The response of the entertainment industry usually goes something like, "If you don't like what's on the TV, then turn it off."  Or, "Want your children to watch decent movies?  Check the rating." "If porn on the Internet worries you, why don't you use the security settings?"  Just about any parent will tell you that these responses have little to do with reality.  Even the best parent can't be stationed in the family room at all times.  Movie ratings, as anybody who goes to at least a couple of movies a year can attest, don't mean a lot.  And you can only filter out so much on the Internet.

It's time for some action.  No, I'm not calling on parents to boycott network television, movie theatres, or the Internet.  That never seems to make much of a difference, anyhow.  It's time for somebody who sits in one of the power rooms of the entertainment industry, or a major corporate advertiser, to act like a parent.  It's time for somebody to stand up and say, "Wait a minute, I know my job is to make money for my company, to deliver for our stockholders, but at some point I've got to think like what I really am – a parent.  This has to stop.  We have to return the family hour back to families."

That's my call to action.  For somebody, somewhere who can really make a difference to flex their corporate authority.  Until that happens, all of the speeches in Congress and all of the pontificating by family and children advocates won't make much of a difference.

And what would happen if such a hero emerged from within the corporate boardroom?  Well, the people putting trash in our televisions and movies would take notice, and they'd feel it in their bottom lines.  It would also make for a stellar report to stockholders.  Wouldn't it be great to stand up and tell your shareholders that "we made America's family rooms safe for America's families?"

Mark W. Merrill is president of Family First (www.familyfirst.net) an independent, non-profit research and communications organization dedicated to strengthening the family.