Mass Media or Bad Parenting?

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English 101-10 Mass Media or Bad Parenting? When it comes to the subject of parenting one must really wonder who to place the blame on: mass media or the parent. In most cases, the blame itself would be put on the media, but there are other underlying reasons as to why children act the way they do now. It has become progressively more obvious how different children today are from the children of past generations. Parenting is considered to be something that should be followed by the books. Mom sends little Jimmy and Suzie to school, cooks, cleans the whole house, and waits for dad and the kids to return home with a delicious meal waiting on the table. Mothers have different roles now as opposed to the roles that they played before the seventies and eighties. Some mothers have to work due to our poor economy or other reasons such as layoffs and debt. These mothers work around forty to eighty hours a week in order to support their family and are sometimes considered the bread winners of the family, a term that was used for most males until recently. Because most parents are working to support their family’s forty to eighty hours a week it is hard for the parents to monitor exactly what their children are watching or listening to. Television today is much different than it was thirty years ago. While there is censorship there is not much that television stations can do during live shows and performances. Take Janet Jackson during the Superbowl a few years ago or Miley Cyrus on the MTV VMAs this year for example. During both performances things less than appropriate were displayed leaving parents livid and children stunned. Shows are not as wholesome as they were when “Leave it to Beaver” or “Dennis the Menace” were on the air. Now children watch shows such as “The Jersey Shore” and “Buck Wild.” These shows promote nothing but sex, recklessness, drugs, and other

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