Media and your child
By Alex Burton | Winona

For the past eight weeks, I have been in two classes that have opened my eyes to what we are exposed to.

Do you know what your kids watch on TV? Do you know what they view on the Internet when you’re not looking?
Statistics show that the average age of children exposed to pornography is age 11. It is ridiculously easy to get access to these sites by just clicking the button that says, “Yes, I’m over 18.”

Furthermore, what’s more disgusting than the availability of porn is the sexuality that has entered even our prime-time cable and movies.

Did you know that about 80 percent of R-rated movies are produced for 12-year-old children?

Last that I recalled, you had to be 17 to enter a movie like that. Some people might wonder why?

For the children who may not be fortunate enough to have role models that show them right from wrong, they are the highest at risk. Not only are these shows and movies vulgar and crude, they have been known to belittle women. Take professional wrestling, for instance. We know it’s all for show, but just look at some of the storylines.

Not only are men beating each other in barbaric fashion, but they target women, too. They rarely are paired fairly against the men in wrestling and often are put into degrading situations. Can we be surprised when there has been a rise in dating violence? One in four women in a relationship has been subjected to such violence.

We have to ask ourselves, how does the media affect us?

How do we not think to ourselves “what’s wrong with this picture?”

In order to change these negative impressions, we have to acknowledge that they exist.

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