Check out your magazine
Another topic posed by The Bert Show. I have not been reading teen magazines for several years so I am totally out of the loop on their content. Well, thanks to last week's topic I am up to speed on these teen magazines. When I was reading "Bop" and "Seventeen", it was covered with photos of boy bands, Tiffany, Debbie Gibson and ads for jelly shoes. Apparently, these days the contents have changed dramatically. They now have surveys that are titled, "Are you ready to have sex?" I think I speak for many other parents when I say that I do not ever want a teen magazine to determine or even attempt to determine if my 15 or 16 year old is old enough or mature enough to be having sex. I can not imagine what moms and dads are going through these days. When I was 15 and 16 years old, I was just driving a car, cheer leading and hanging out with my friends. I was not worried about being old enough to have sex. I was not, just in my personal opinion and I knew that. I think it is sad that kids and they are kids, this age are faced with things like this. I just wish that they understood they have years ahead of them to think and worry about these things. Not now, not when they should be getting their driver's license, going to dances and having sleep overs. They do not need to worry about planning their first encounter with sex around when their parents are not going to be home or when their boyfriend of the month can get his mother's car.
I would love to sit here and blame it on shows like Everwood, Dawson's Creek and The OC, but I don't believe that is the root of the problem. Shows like that certainly do not help, but I do not believe that is what makes kids grow up too fast. I was watching Beverly Hills 90210 when I was 16. Brenda and Dylan were worrying over if Brenda was pregnant or not. Because my mom talked to me about virtues and because she was honest with me on the things that I had to face by making a choice like that, I wasn't placing myself in that position. I do believe that the media does not help in raising healthy, well adjusted, kids who act like kids when they are kids, but it is not their responsibility- it is the parents of the kids. That is where the link is either strong or it is broken. Kids are going to find out about sex, drinking, drugs, whatever else there is even if their parents avoid talking to them about it. I think because my mom was always open to discussing issues with me, I stayed informed and out of trouble. When I heard things that I did not know, I came home and asked my mom about it. I am sure she worried a couple of times when I came home and asked her a few other things, but she never flinched or went crazy because I asked. She helped me keep the lines of communication open so I learned things I did not understand and I never felt scared to talk to her about it. But, it was her influence as well as her honesty that I kept me out of trouble, I think. She was present in my life at all times. She knew my friends, what we liked, what we were doing and she gave me room to make choices. Good or bad, she let me make them and I feel comfortable with many of them that I made back then.
I have to say, I was a little shocked when I stopped at the store and thumbed through a Teen Cosmo. Yikes, I do not know if I am going to buy things like that for my daughter. I was not real impressed. I miss the color pictures of the cutie movie stars from back then that I use to tear out and post on the back of my door. These guys were always fully clothed. Sure, their collars may have been turned up and they may have applied a lot of product to their hair in order for it to stand up as it did, but they have been replaced by half naked guys who look 30 rather then 17. Their jeans are unbuttoned and half unzipped, not much different from the ads in the adult Cosmo that I use to buy.
I no longer have any of my old magazines from my teen years. Does anyone out there still have theirs? I would be interested in hearing if my memory serves me right. Or, did my mom censor the magazines that I read and never bought the ones with the New Kids On The Block half naked?
Another topic posed by The Bert Show. I have not been reading teen magazines for several years so I am totally out of the loop on their content. Well, thanks to last week's topic I am up to speed on these teen magazines. When I was reading "Bop" and "Seventeen", it was covered with photos of boy bands, Tiffany, Debbie Gibson and ads for jelly shoes. Apparently, these days the contents have changed dramatically. They now have surveys that are titled, "Are you ready to have sex?" I think I speak for many other parents when I say that I do not ever want a teen magazine to determine or even attempt to determine if my 15 or 16 year old is old enough or mature enough to be having sex. I can not imagine what moms and dads are going through these days. When I was 15 and 16 years old, I was just driving a car, cheer leading and hanging out with my friends. I was not worried about being old enough to have sex. I was not, just in my personal opinion and I knew that. I think it is sad that kids and they are kids, this age are faced with things like this. I just wish that they understood they have years ahead of them to think and worry about these things. Not now, not when they should be getting their driver's license, going to dances and having sleep overs. They do not need to worry about planning their first encounter with sex around when their parents are not going to be home or when their boyfriend of the month can get his mother's car.
I would love to sit here and blame it on shows like Everwood, Dawson's Creek and The OC, but I don't believe that is the root of the problem. Shows like that certainly do not help, but I do not believe that is what makes kids grow up too fast. I was watching Beverly Hills 90210 when I was 16. Brenda and Dylan were worrying over if Brenda was pregnant or not. Because my mom talked to me about virtues and because she was honest with me on the things that I had to face by making a choice like that, I wasn't placing myself in that position. I do believe that the media does not help in raising healthy, well adjusted, kids who act like kids when they are kids, but it is not their responsibility- it is the parents of the kids. That is where the link is either strong or it is broken. Kids are going to find out about sex, drinking, drugs, whatever else there is even if their parents avoid talking to them about it. I think because my mom was always open to discussing issues with me, I stayed informed and out of trouble. When I heard things that I did not know, I came home and asked my mom about it. I am sure she worried a couple of times when I came home and asked her a few other things, but she never flinched or went crazy because I asked. She helped me keep the lines of communication open so I learned things I did not understand and I never felt scared to talk to her about it. But, it was her influence as well as her honesty that I kept me out of trouble, I think. She was present in my life at all times. She knew my friends, what we liked, what we were doing and she gave me room to make choices. Good or bad, she let me make them and I feel comfortable with many of them that I made back then.
I have to say, I was a little shocked when I stopped at the store and thumbed through a Teen Cosmo. Yikes, I do not know if I am going to buy things like that for my daughter. I was not real impressed. I miss the color pictures of the cutie movie stars from back then that I use to tear out and post on the back of my door. These guys were always fully clothed. Sure, their collars may have been turned up and they may have applied a lot of product to their hair in order for it to stand up as it did, but they have been replaced by half naked guys who look 30 rather then 17. Their jeans are unbuttoned and half unzipped, not much different from the ads in the adult Cosmo that I use to buy.
I no longer have any of my old magazines from my teen years. Does anyone out there still have theirs? I would be interested in hearing if my memory serves me right. Or, did my mom censor the magazines that I read and never bought the ones with the New Kids On The Block half naked?
posted by Natrc at
8:34 AM
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