Every decade has its fashion statements. I remember seeing family pictures from the seventies, where my brother was wearing bell bottoms and butterfly collars. When I was a teenager in the eighties, everybody was after a pair of two toned AJ's and a leather bomber with a fur trimmed hood. The children of the new millennium also have their own look; they want to look like gangstas.

  Taking images that they see on videos, kids want to be thugged out. Someone please tell me when thugged out and dirty became the same thing. What started out as boys getting their hair braided has turned into kids with dry, uncombed bushes, wearing dirty clothes falling off their butts. Why is it acceptable for us to send our children to school in need of a haircut and a shower? When I take my children to school, I am amazed at the amount of first graders that have on dingy clothes, and diamond earrings as big as their earlobes. What are these parents thinking about?

  Everyone talks about keepin' it real; there seems to be a blur between reality and fantasy. Real life is not a video. With the exception of athletes and entertainers, how many of us can show up at work with our hair not combed? I know we have all seem mothers with Prada bags, new boots and their nails done toting around kids that were dressed out of the dirty hamper. I always shake my head and wonder why. Do these kids have authority over their parents, so they do want they want? Or do their parents purposely present their children like that? Some may think that it's cute to have their son look like Ludacris, but after all what does the word ludicrous mean? To quote Webster's, "Exciting laughter because of absurd, ridiculous, etc." Is that what we want teachers thinking of our children? Our children are a reflection of ourselves, after all. Please don't get the subject at hand twisted. I am not talking about Ludacris, or any other adult. Adults take care of themselves, and can do that they choose; I am talking about when adults put an adult image (a thug image at that) on their children.

 Imitating TV shows only affirms a stereotype, which in the end weakens our children and teaches them to be followers. We need to teach our children to be strong, intelligent leaders.

 
published by Urbanscope on 1/03. copyright protected