New 'mommy wars': a fight against pop culture's excess

When directly focused on parenting issues, mothers in both Chicago and Nashville, Tenn., interviewed by the Monitor agree that it's hard to shield children from inappropriate influences. And they agree, no matter whom they voted for, that kids need a firm parental hand limiting the amount and types of media they consume.

"It's not even just TV," says Erika Waller of Brentwood, Tenn., a full-time mom with four kids ages eight and under. "It's computers and everything."

A mom can protect her children at home, but it's hard once they venture into the world, to go to school or visit a friend's house, says Ms. Waller. Even her two-year-old picks up bad language easily, she says.

Waller uses a parental blocker on the television and keeps close watch when the children surf the Web. She frets most over the TV, where indecency and bad language are the worst, she says: "TV is the hardest. There are no limits anymore."

Diane Snider of Franklin, Tenn., a full-time mother with two young children still at home, says that even though there was a lot of "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" when she was growing up, it's different today.

"It's probably more intense now," she says.

She says she and her husband work hard to be good role models. They monitor what their kids watch on TV and teach them to be wary of strangers. "It's doing the right things, as opposed to saying them," she says.

She describes herself as a "liberal Republican" and voted for Bush in November, in part because she feels he can promote a better place for her kids to grow up in. He promotes a cleaner culture without stifling individual rights, she says.

"I didn't really think that I trusted [Kerry]," she says. "[Bush] has God, religion."

In Chicago, the mothers interviewed all favored the rating systems in place for video games, websites, and some TV shows; two said they would like to see more government intervention in terms of rating more television shows for violence, banning violent video games, and not allowing violent TV shows and commercials early in the evening.

Sara Gooding-Williams lives in Evanston, Ill., and has a 17-year-old daughter and a four-year-old son.

"I limit their television; my son doesn't really know about commercial television," she says. "He watches public TV and we'll occasionally buy or rent him a 'Sesame Street' DVD.... My daughter didn't watch much television until she started seeing stuff at friends' houses, which is what's starting to happen to my son."

She wishes there were a way to have a TV control system that would automatically shut out certain shows, the way she was able to block her daughter's access to certain websites when she was younger.

Teresa Sommer is the mother of three children, also in Evanston. "The primary thing is to lead by example, which both my husband and I try to do," she says. "We try to take advantage of teaching moments that are available, to be reflective about those moments, and let the kids think about those questions."

Amy Green in Nashville, Tenn., and Anne Stein in Chicago contributed to this report. [Editor's note: The original version failed to mention the contributors.]

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