Family Forum / Parenting / Parenting / March 2007

Where is Jerry Mathers when I need him most?

<http://www.greeleytrib.com/article/20070219/READERS/102190095>
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Guest Commentary by Jared Fiel
February 19, 2007

I was 10 years old, and I was swinging high.

My buddy, Sean, was pushing me on the two-seater swing on his front
porch. I was stretched out on the seat pretending to be an
astronaut ... or Tarzan ... or an Olympic bobsledder.

And with one more big push, the swing rammed through the large front
window of the house.

Shattered it.

We froze.

Sean's parents weren't home (this was back in the day when parents
were OK leaving 10-year-olds home alone). And somehow nobody in the
neighborhood heard anything.

"My parents will kill me if they find out," Sean said.

"How are they not going to find out?"

"We'll tell them some other kids came by and did it."

"Who?"

"Danny."

"I don't want to get Danny in trouble."

"We'll just say it was some kids we didn't know."

To a 10-year-old, this sounds perfectly reasonable. ... Some rogue
gang of street toughs were roaming the neighborhood, and, while Sean
and I valiantly tried to defend the porch swing from them, they
overpowered us and pushed it through the window.

It was perfect.

But I couldn't go through with it. Jerry Mathers wouldn't let me. Of
course, he was Theodore Cleaver -- The Beaver -- from "Leave it to
Beaver," a show I watched almost every day of my young life (mainly
because this was before cable TV was invented and I had a choice
between that and "The Mike Douglas Show").

At that instant, I thought of The Beav who had done something wrong
and he lied about it. He got caught and learned an important lesson
about telling the truth (sadly, he never learned one about getting a
better nickname).

So, we told the truth. We got yelled at ... a lot. We had the money
for the window taken out of our allowances (for a really long time, as
I recall) and that was it.

When I think back on those days, I realized all the other lessons I
learned from TV as a kid. There were tons:

« Don't tattle ("My Three Sons")

« Don't play ball in the house. ("The Brady Bunch")

« Don't put a guy wearing a stupid hat in charge of anything or you'll
never get rescued. ("Gilligan's Island")

Back then, I actually felt pretty good about using TV as a moral
compass for my behavior. It only backfired a few times, like when I
used the bad word for a child born out of wedlock because it was the
name of a TV movie and when I called my best friend a "honkey" because
I heard it on "The Jeffersons."

But times have changed. I look at the popular shows now, and I think
about the lessons they are teaching:

« Don't trust anybody because they are probably a mole for a secret
evil organization that will destroy the world. ("24")

« Numbers are evil. ("Lost")

« If you say something snotty in an English accent, people will
believe you are intelligent. ("American Idol")

I realize the shows I watched when I was a kid were intended for kids.
There were probably no great life lessons in "Barnaby Jones" or
"Columbo" either.

But look at kid's shows today and the lessons they learn are much
different. I asked my kids what they learned from TV:

« Girls are gross. ("Ed, Edd and Eddie")

« Sponges live in pineapples. ("Spongebob Squarepants")

« Radioactive slime gives you super powers. ("Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles")

I am not one of those people who believes TV has an obligation to
teach my kids lessons. If I want, I can shut the TV off and teach them
myself. I just think it's interesting how things have changed.

So, the other day when I heard a loud crash in the living room, I ran
over and found my youngest son, wrapped in a blanket with a pile of
coasters all around him.

"What happened?"

He looked at me and it was readily apparent that Jerry Mathers was
nowhere in his thinking.

"I just walked by and the coasters fell on me."

"No they didn't."

"I didn't do it."

"Who did?"

"Ninjas!"

We're getting "Leave it to Beaver" on DVD next week.

--
Jared Fiel, author of "Fumbling Thru Fatherhood," is a former
newspaper reporter and editor who now takes orders from his wife and
two sons. Visit www.fumblingfather.com for more foolishness.