Awhile back, National Public Radio aired the views of a concerned mother who was taking a stand against the excesses of today's popular culture for children. As a young single adult, this woman reveled in edgy music videos and the freedom of living without inhibition. But as a married parent of two children, ages 2 and 8, she has become hostile
to a popular culture that undermines her efforts to instill a strong moral sense in her children. So now she forbids television and won't let her children watch a video until she has approved it.
In case you're wondering, this vigilant mother is not Dr. Laura. She's Madonna. And she's not alone. Millions of other parents share the Material Girl's view of the effects of popular culture on children. They object to its violence, materialism, and misogyny.
They are offended by video game beheadings, disturbed by tawdry streetwalker fashions for 6-year-olds, outraged by Justin Timberlake's ripping of Janet Jackson's bodice at the Super Bowl, and disgusted by the Abercrombie & Fitch ads that feature half-nude teenagers simulating group sex. But, lacking Madonna's resources, parents feel outgunned by the corporations that use these manipulative come-ons to generate buzz and box office with no sense of responsibility to children or families. Most of all, parents fear they are losing their ability to teach their children right from wrong.
Democrats should listen to Madonna. They should get their heads around this simple truth: Parents have a beef with popular culture.
As it is, married parents of young children are slipping away from the Democratic Party. That's 28 percent of the electorate -- 33.6 million voters in 2004. The last two presidential elections revealed a dramatic and growing "parent gap." Al Gore lost married parents by 15 percentage points. John Kerry widened the gap, losing them by a whopping 19 points -- 59-40. And it could get worse.
Republicans have been targeting married parents with a conservative populism that depicts Democrats as amoral, secularizing elitists who are anti-God, anti-America, anti-family, and anti-heartland values. When it comes to the popular culture, the GOP has convinced parents that Democrats are more on the side of MTV than the PTA. Astonishingly, the Democratic response has been to sit back and take it, rather than to stage a counterattack. Is it any wonder that married parents think Democrats are indifferent to their concerns?
It doesn't have to be this way. Democrats were successful in competing for the votes of married parents in the very recent past. Bill Clinton did well with them, losing them narrowly in
1992 and winning them narrowly in 1996. (Remember his endorsement of the V-chip?) Clinton's success shows that Democrats can compete for the parent vote. But to do so, they have to understand
parents' outlook on the popular culture and go on the offensive with a new message of progressive cultural populism.
Parenthood is a life-transforming experience. It changes behavior in predictable
ways. When people become parents, they become more closely connected to family and community,
more religiously observant, and more likely to vote. Their outlook on the popular culture often changes, too. A 25-year-old who is not yet a parent is likely to feel at home in -- or at least
have a nodding acquaintance with -- the world of hip-hop, the club scene, R-rated movies, and adult-themed cable television shows. But a 35-year-old parent sees things in a different light. He or she looks at the popular culture not as an unencumbered adult, but as a grown-up who is responsible
for shaping the ideals, values, and aspirations of a child. From this vantage point, the culture -- especially the elements that sensationalize crime, violence, drugs, and sex -- looks more toxic. Take MTV's afternoon show "Spring Break." For parents, its celebration of babes, beer, and beach parties
no longer comes across as innocent fun. It looks like an endorsement of binge drinking and casual sex. This does not mean that parents want to renounce the adult pleasures of the popular culture or deny them to other grownups. But it does mean that parents want to draw a boundary between what's OK for adults and what's OK for children in their formative years. And they want to keep children on the
side of the boundary that lets children be children.
Call them "life stage conservatives." This doesn't make them political conservatives. Madonna, who
supported Gen. Wesley Clark in 2004, is hardly a leading conservative. Nor, for that matter, are most married parents. In the 2004 presidential vote, the majority of married parents were self-identified moderates (45 percent) and liberals (16 percent). Rather, "life stage conservatism" is rooted in the
parental responsibility to teach children right from wrong. This sense of responsibility might explain the response of married parents to a now-famous question in the 2004 exit polls. Asked to name the one issue that mattered the most in their presidential voting decision, 27 percent of married parents chose "moral values" -- as opposed to 20 percent of the rest of the electorate.
Today's parents also tend to evaluate popular culture by comparing it with the popular culture they knew as children -- and not the popular culture they knew as young single adults. For parents who grew up in the 1970s, for example, their childhood looks like an age of Edenic innocence. But today,
Eminem, not Debbie Boone, tops the Billboard music charts. Britney Spears, not Marcia Brady, sets the fashion standard for 9-year-old girls. T-shirts emblazoned with the brand name FCUK have replaced homemade tie-dyes. The hot children's games aren't Clue or Candyland. They're video
games like last year's best-selling award-winner, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas -- which features gang violence and the killing of female prostitutes -- or the Internet video game that invites players to step into the shoes of Lee Harvey Oswald and fire at President Kennedy.
Bursting dam. At the same time, technological innovations have made
it harder for parents to monitor what their children are watching, buying, and playing. Back in the 1970s, there were three major home entertainment technologies -- radio, television, and stereo. All three were big boxes. All three occupied fixed spaces in the home, where parents could see and
hear what was going on. All three came with plugs to pull and off buttons to push. But the new technologies include a dizzying and ever-multiplying array of devices that defy close parental oversight. They're small, portable, and personal. It is true that there are also technologies that theoretically allow parents to control and monitor their children's media consumption habits, such as V-chips in televisions and Internet monitoring software for computers. But as a practical matter,
those technologies amount to plugs in a bursting dam. More to the point, the new technologies move around with the kids. So it's not just a matter of monitoring what kids do at home. They are plugged in at school and the mall, on the bus and the street. Kids meet the popular culture everywhere they go.
But parents don't meet today's purveyors of it on a level playing field. Their adversaries aren't just corner stores that sell candy, comic books, and Playboy, but multibillion-dollar
industries that hawk video games, entertainment, teen fashion, and fast food. These corporate Goliaths invest huge amounts of time and money thinking up ways to appeal directly to children, right over their parents' heads. Parents don't have the time or the resources to fight the onslaught by themselves. It is time for the Democrats to take their side in the battle against Big Sleaze.
Progressive cultural populism. Any good populist appeal begins by identifying with the worth and dignity of Americans who work hard, play by the rules, and thereby make the nation stronger and better. Thus, the essential first step is for Democrats to engage parents directly by publicly affirming the value of their work and sacrifice in raising children. In speeches, campaign advertisements, and everyday comments to the news media, the Democratic message should be: Parents are doing an important job. They are making an indispensable contribution to society when they bring up good kids, and every American has a stake in their success. Moreover, corporations
that subvert parents to turn a buck are at odds with the public interest.
The next step in any populist appeal is to take the side of the people against the powerful interests.
Democrats have to ally themselves with parents against the corporate forces that threaten their ability to raise good kids. This does not mean censorship, of course. Nor does it always mean legislation or regulation. But it does mean that the party should regularly and aggressively identify itself with parents' concerns and attack the irresponsible marketers of violence and sleaze to young children.
The party's message should be: For us, concerns about the health of next-quarter profits never outweigh the moral health of the next generation. In that struggle, we are on parents' side.
President Clinton's support for school uniforms in 1996 is a prime example of how to send parents that
message. Clinton had no power to impose school uniforms on the millions of school children in the thousands of public school districts across the nation. But he knew that parents resented the heavy marketing of expensive sneakers and designer-label clothes to their kids -- not to mention the violence sometimes sparked among clothes-conscious teens. He knew that the competition for this pricey gear sent the wrong message to kids about what was important in school. By endorsing school uniforms,
he put Democrats on the side of parents.
Siding with the people against powerful interests is populism. But what makes it progressive is the core belief that rearing children is not just a private responsibility for parents to bear alone. The public has an interest -- and the state has a role -- in supporting parents and in leveling the playing field. This empowers parents to fulfill their moral responsibility to raise "upstanding" children. That's Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's argument. He has launched a campaign to outlaw the sale of extremely violent
video games to kids under 18. At the outset of that campaign, he took advantage of his bully pulpit by
explaining the rationale for his proposal in an open letter to the parents of Illinois. It was, shrewdly, coauthored by first lady Patricia Blagojevich. The letter asserted the underlying progressive principle:
"Parenting is hard work, and the state has a compelling interest in helping parents to raise children to be upstanding men and women."
This principle has long been central to progressive child-rearing reforms. Democrats have led efforts to create zones of protection for children against the incursions of the marketplace and to provide children with wholesome alternatives to the allures of adult entertainment. This was also an animating idea behind great reforms of the Progressive Era. Anti-child labor laws, compulsory education, and the creation of settlement houses as an alternative to the city streets were all designed to create a protected zone for children in a world where they were too often exploited and corrupted by commercial
interests.
Today, there are other pro-parent initiatives that Democrats should consider as well, such as Sen. Hillary Clinton's proposal to create a uniform rating system for all entertainment media. If Democrats begin to reach out in that way, they will have a good chance of being more competitive with Republicans for the support of married parents. Single parents, who already strongly favor
Democrats and who are embattled by the same cultural forces, will respond positively as well.
Finally, in taking the side of parents against the marketing of graphic sex and violence to children, Democrats stand on firm political ground. They do not have to retreat from fundamental values like upholding the First Amendment. Supporting parents against powerful interests is fully in keeping with the party's principles and traditions. Democrats have always stood for the little guy against the big guys, families against corporate powers, and the goal of creating a better future for the next generation. But Democrats can't be a party of the future if they lose their connection to parents who are creating that future by rearing the next generation.
