Heatwave! Excellent writing "land of the free and the home of the blame"? Tremendous use of the english language, you paint a wonderful picture of truth with light sarcasm that makes us all step back and begin to closer examine what exactly do we feel about the subject at hand
Keep up the great writing!
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Well, I don't think the poll at the bottom worked, so I'll post my comments here:

Modern day 'parents' aren't being parents at all.

It boggles my mind that I need to go through 4 years of collegiate courses to become a teacher, but I can become a parent at the drop of a [jimmy] hat.

There should be a lot more preparation for parenthood among teenagers, and I don't mean handing out a list of local abortion clinics either.

Welllll, as a parent, I'm here to report that a lot of us are doing the hard work of being up in our kids' faces and in their business and making sure they do their homework and say their prayers and eat their vegetables and get to bed at a decent hour and don't beat on their little brothers and sisters and all that. The problem is, a lot of parents aren't.

My oldest is in 2nd grade. His best friend from 1st grade isn't in his class this year, but they still get together at lunch and recess. Before the election, his friend told my son that his parents (my husband and I) are "stupid" because we support President Bush(!!!). This kid has a TV with cable movie channels in his room and can watch whatever he wants. He regales my son with stories of "Freddy vs Jason" and other fine feature films. Oh, yeah, this kid casually talks about sex, too. Great, huh?

My son has already learned to be skeptical about anything this kid says. He also understands why he doesn't now have, and never will have, a TV or computer in his own room while he's living in this house. We check out every movie with several trusted sources before we go to see it or rent it. I read the labels on the food I bring into the house, too -- my kids know how I feel about it. It's not going to kill them to occasionally eat fast food or Oreos, but that's no reason for me to bring that stuff into the house...

Am I over-protective? I don't think so. I try to give my kids perspective. Today I had a discussion with my daughter when we were at the "regular" supermarket, where we rarely shop, picking up our Thanksgiving turkey. It blows her mind that here is a store full of basically poison, and so many people by that stuff. She knows it's because they don't know about all the "bad stuff", or maybe they just don't care, because let's face it, all that "bad sutff" 1) tastes good and 2) is cheap and easy to buy.

I'm stubborn, especially when I have it on good authority that I'm right.

I like to believe there are more parents out there like me than the clueless idiots who aren't parents but should be more rightly called "birth givers," as in that creepy "South Park" episode where they kids parents' all incarcerated themselves for potential child molestation.

It's hard to tell, though. From what we hear in the media, it seems that there are a lot more birth-givers than parents out there. I pray that's just a reflection of the fact that bad news sells.

Joan, I must say, the more I read some of the insight you give, the more I am certain that there are parents out there doing their part. So the article of course wasn't intended to suggest that the whole parenting aspect of our country has gone to you know where in a handbasket.

I do think that Alex makes a good point (Sorry about the commenting function not working, I dunno what's up with that. I'll let them know) about society not equipping people to be parents.

This is a bit unrelated, but in tarnation ever happened to Home-Ec? I would have SOOOOOO loved to have had that type of class in school. And would you believe I knew kids in college who were doing their laundry for the FIRST TIME?! Puh-LEAZE, my parents weren't havin' it!

So I guess I think there's a whole host of domestication topics that are sort of "glazed over" in our modern-day culture. What's worse is bad behavior gets passed on from generation to generation. Without depgramming from learned behavior, kids are likely to replicate the type of parenting style they themselves were subjected to. Viscious cycle...

Ambra,

Great column, it's good to see you back in fine form. I agree with Joan's sentiments and that is exactly why we homeschool our children. It seems that every week we hear some news report around our town (metro Atlanta) which describes how some teacher has molested a student or how a couple teenage girls plotted to kill their grandparents, and succeeded. The high school down the street fired its principal a couple years back because she was embezzling funds from the school. I could go on but you get the gist.

There are many God-fearing parents out there who are doing the hard work at raising the next generation of godly men and women. They may be considered prudes and unsophisticated and people may accuse me of being over protective but EXCUSE ME - I thought it was my and my husband's job to protect our children from bad influences and make sure they grow up to be respectful, polite young adults.

Rant over. Blessings. Check out www.visionforum.com to see how some are doing the hard work of parenting.