Are Conservative Parents in the Dark?

I was watching the news last night and they threw this story out there.

politicolonel.com...

Now, I have tea party conservative parents, My grandparents are fundamentalists, some may call them Bible Thumpers. Not sure what they would do to me, if I ever said I was agnostic and only used the Bible and Jesus as a guide to live my life by. However, that's enough about them. I want to know what you think about conservative parents keeping their kids as they put it, "Safe from the evils of the world."

My parents hate things they don't understand, so when the video game market matured in the early 1990s we weren't allowed to have anything in the TV, because they were fearful that the game might over take the television and we would be without television... We were allowed no outside wires penetrating the TV! Even though this notion was silly, I thank my parents for being as paranoid as they were about video games, because even though I am a 23 year old computer nerd and most of my friends love video games, I find them silly and a waste of time! If it wasn't for them, I'd be wasting all my time and money playing stupid games...

The same can be said for my morals on drug use. I don't even drink coffee and I hate when I have to use tums or aspirin. But I didn't learn that from my parents. Both of my parents did not go to college. When my mom was working three jobs she met and married my dad who had a budding start up auto chain which is now a millionaire dollar business.

They don't know what goes on in college. They don't understand that most schools are liberal; even private so-called christian schools such as the one I went to. They don't know how much college kids drink. They don't know anything about marijuana. They don't understand fraternities. Now, thanks to my religious upbringing and my own morals I don't drink, I don't smoke. But ALL of my friends did at one point or another. Half of them came to class either drunk or high or hung over! On days they don't have class they start drinking at 10 AM until they pass out. Obviously I never joined a frat.

Needless to say, I vowed never to drink or smoke! I did try beer once--hated it!

The reason I am talking about this is, my parents are good people. They see good in everyone as do I. But they snicker at the stories I tell them about my friends and their drinking/drug use. They don't get how it could be possible. Even though, my father does the same thing they do. When he comes home from work he drinks eight beers and passes out by midnight!

When I say the person is probably high or drunk they laugh in my face and tell me know they are just being stupid. Can conservative parents easily point out drunk/high people as well as their kids who have witnessed all levels of said drug use? While the parents have been sheltered in their little upper middle class lifestyle when the most people get drunk is at weddings after three glasses of wine?

I think I was a little unprepared for this part of college. I didn't like it. I asked to move schools a couple of times, but in their wisdom the parents told me that there was going to be this type of stuff at all colleges and to find kids that didn't do this. I did it, but it took until my senior year to do so. It wasn't easy. So, they must know a little bit about the goings-on there....

So, is it a good thing to keep kids sheltered like I was? Or let them have experience?

reply to post by jjf3rd77


They wish to shelter there kids from the outside world. They wish to limit the amount of sin that the kids are exposed too. They wish to be Christ like and not like humans at all.

This is why we have so much censorship, why movies on cable have so many bleeped out content same thing with music.

I was raised evangelical and am a first hand witness of people only exposing there kids to Christian family's and events. The problem of course is when they grow up and the world there parents showed them has nothing to do with reality.

I think this is why America produces so many serial killers.

There's a difference between conservative and crazy. Just like there's a difference between liberal and crazy. My father is pretty conservative, and he is a great father. My mother is more liberal, still a great mother. Both wanted to keep me a little sheltered, and I believe I came out better for it. I was never over sheltered, but I couldn't watch Bevis and Butthead when I was 9. Things like that just make sense.

Originally posted by LDragonFire
I think this is why America produces so many serial killers.

edit on 15-6-2012 by LDragonFire because: (no reason given)

America produces so many serial killers because it is the third most populous nation on the planet.


It is regrettable that you were not allowed to view all the porn you wanted to as a child. Are you making up for lost time now? Seriously. Stuff is censored because there is a lot of amazingly dark stuff on TV, and even on the broadcast "free" radio there is a lot of very adult themes. Letting those people spend time with your children is a pretty breathtaking prospect.


How will you raise your children differently, if you have any?

Originally posted by Mr Headshot
There's a difference between conservative and crazy. Just like there's a difference between liberal and crazy. My father is pretty conservative, and he is a great father. My mother is more liberal, still a great mother. Both wanted to keep me a little sheltered, and I believe I came out better for it. I was never over sheltered, but I couldn't watch Bevis and Butthead when I was 9. Things like that just make sense.

This is a great point. Both my parents were pretty liberal, but kept me from things like Bevis and Butthead as well. Played my share of Nintendo, though. Still, I think I'm better for it. A lot of what passes for entertainment needs a more mature mind to understand, and fair share of it is just trash. To be honest, it's my parents and their restrictions that made me an avid reader, a habit that has paid dividends as I've matured. There's a line though, and at some point parents need to understand that we all live in the same world, and that teaching a child to hide his or her head in the sand is not the best strategy to instill values

reply to post by VivaDiscordia


Absolutely, the problem is that parents are just people too. They're usually terrified for their kids and also terrified to raise them because nobody knows how.

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