Parents see tough moral rival in popular culture
By Cheryl Wetzstein, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

October 31, 2002-  American parents worry most about whether their children will have good character and values and they see America's popular culture as their adversary, according to a new survey.

     "Parents today are struggling very hard to raise respectful, responsible, well-behaved children," said Deborah Wadsworth, president of Public Agenda, which yesterday released its parenting survey, "A Lot Easier Said Than Done." (Conducted for the State Farm Insurance Companies with additional funding from the Family Friendly Programming Forum)

     But 76 percent of parents felt their job was "a lot harder" than what their parents faced, said the survey, based on telephone interviews of 1,607 parents of children ages 5 to 17.  The previous generation of parents went through hardships and world wars, "but we did not feel as if our kids were surrounded by hazards of every kind," Mrs. Wadsworth said.  

     "We felt there were allies — institutional allies — and the real world reinforced the values that we wanted to teach our kids," she said.  My sense from this study, and it's really painful, is that parents just feel absolutely abandoned.  They feel as if they are being sabotaged at every turn."