My college years were a healthy mix of alcohol incoherency, an overinflated sense of self confidence and a plethora of bad decisions. In other words, I was no different than most young adults. We’re all finding our way at that age, one poor choice at a time.
Once I joined a fraternity, my wardrobe consisted of around 10 t-shirts, 2 pairs of jeans and 3-4 pairs of cargo and/or jean shorts. The majority of my t-shirts were emblazoned with my fraternity letters. There was one in particular I was most proud of. The shirt featured several low quality beers with the words, “Sh*tty Beers of America” on the back (I added the asterisk, as I will throughout this article).
I wore this shirt proudly around campus, not caring what anyone might think. I was young, carefree and prone to choices I’d never made today. Most people grow out of this phase. As I look around at our society, this appears less and less true.
Picking up my daughter from school the other day, I noticed a minivan with a sticker on the back. It read, “Powered by B*tch Dust.” Similar to my shirt, you wouldn’t put this on your car if you weren’t proud of it. Later that day I saw another sticker on a car that read, “I Have No F*cks Left to Give.” This time around there was a kid behind the wheel. Regardless, that’s a pretty blatant message to put out there to the world.
Standards of what’s acceptable in society are at the lowest point that I can remember. A good example would be our weekly struggle to find a show that we can watch with our 9 year old daughter. Rather than watching a PG-13 movie which subjects her to inappropriate situations and language that’s beyond her scope of understanding, we almost always settle on cooking shows. They’re one of the last bastions of decency. They allow us to be entertained without removing her childlike innocence sooner than we’d like.
Let me be clear, I’m not saying TV or society in general should be like “Leave it to Beaver,” however, the gap between what was acceptable in my childhood versus what’s acceptable now is pretty cavernous. Madonna and Prince of the mid 1980’s may as well be on PBS story time compared to what can be found with one simple internet search by our kids.
More and more what was once considered taboo has become mainstream. The Red Light District is no longer confined to Amsterdam. What used to be controlled by the mafia and various criminal enterprises has given way to large corporate syndicates owning brands like DraftKings and OnlyFans. Repackaged and marketed as entertainment, there are no more societal guardrails.
Many would point to this as progress. This is simply what happens as America continues to transform and evolve. My question is, at what point do we step in and say “enough?” Regardless of your religious preference or what side of the political spectrum you’re on, there are agreements that can be made, this is especially true when it comes to our kids. What should we subject them to and when? Are we doing enough to step in and be the adults in the room?
These are all tough questions and certainly far more would need to be written to tackle them all. It does provide us with food for thought. Perhaps that’s the best we can hope for at this point. There’s no stopping what many would consider depravations in our society, but the choice to take part in any or all of them is entirely our own.
Regardless of whether we see it, there is always a price to pay for our choices. That price impacts the lives of our kids and future generations to come.
Throwing up your hands and saying, “I don’t give a sh*t” shouldn’t be a viable option.
As a bumper sticker perhaps, but that’s your choice.
