I have a teenager.......

#1 Son is 13 and technically a teenager. I’m not trying to execute some end run around the difficult teen years, such as putting 10 candles on his birthday cake for the next decade. But it would be nice if he could avoid some of the dreck that is waiting out there for him. For example,
L. Brent Bozell III of the Media Research Center has written a nerve shattering summary of the latest Teen Choice Awards show. One nice thing about homeschooling is that a young person who is not yet interested in viewing this sort of cultural debacle does not have to face the schoolyard post-mortem of who wore what, sang what, and was bleeped for saying what.

Many will say that young people have always been rebellious and eager to push their limits. But never in the history of civilization have there been such huge, greedy businesses turning a profit by encouraging youth to ignore their parents. To quote Mr. Bozell, “They also gave it an award under the equally inappropriate category of"Choice Movie Your Parents Didn't Want You to See." (that is, American Pie 2) If the film inspires teenagers into the joys of reckless sexual abandon, perhaps next year Seventeen will go a step further and create a category for "Choice Birth Control Clinic Your Parents Didn't Want You to Attend Without Their Consent." This is precisely what leads me to those ol’ if I had a gun I’d play Elvis and just go through the house and shoot all the TV’s. (Though there is ample documentation in an archived letter to the Chicago Trib in which I said I’d take a brick if a gun were not available. The family remembers this - and restrains their watching accordingly........) <