Deon D. Price: This Youth Generation

There was a time when parents were concerned about who their children were associating with, in fear of possible negative influences. If they were not in the physical presence of a person, then they were free from harm.

Parents today have much more to worry about in terms of negative influences.

The advancement of technology has made the task of parenting much more challenging than ever. I’m more concerned, as a father, about who my sons and daughter are listening to and watching. I occasionally hear a successful artist refer to who they were influenced by as a child. For me, it was Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye. Why? Because it was what my parents and elders listened to.

While I was in the house doing chores, there was James Brown playing in the background: “Say it Loud.” You know! You could not have a family gathering without the O’Jays tune “For the Love of Money” or Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.”

These artists were not only cultural icons but they were also making statements on the social-economic conditions of the urban society at the time, which in some ways cultivated critical thinking and inspired consciousness. Aside from the psychedelic, diaper-wearing, weed-smoking antics of Parliament and George Clinton, this was an era of positive influence through music and entertainment. There were no profanity-laced, sexually explicit lyrics.

I know what you’re thinking, but Prince didn’t come on the scene until the 1980s.

How are today’s artists and entertainers influencing the current youth generation? The media and entertainment industries are even more powerful today due to overexposure and constant repetition. Thanks to the digital world in which we live, your child could conveniently have 24 hours of nonstop ill-spirited messages inculcated into his or her mind on a daily basis.

Gone are the days you’d sit in the living room listening to a vinyl record with only eight songs. No 8-track tape or need to carry a 35-pound boom box with maybe an hour’s worth of size D battery power.

Nah! Your children have unlimited access to all the sex and violence that can be stored on a 50-gigabyte multimedia device or smartphone the size of a credit card.

A good example is the recent No. 1 song in the country, which is Cardi B’s “WAP.” The meaning of the title alone scares me. And what’s even more troubling is that you may never know what they are listening to because of the discreet tool of $150 earbuds.

This generation of youth will not be influenced by what their parents have passed on because we are tuned out.

We had to listen to what our parents were saying and playing because that was the only option. Not so for today’s youth. Advanced technology has made it easy for them to disconnect and separate from their parents’ influence. What happens eventually is that they become so disconnected until parents can’t reach them emotionally or spiritually.

They can’t hear us anymore because we are foreign to them.

They have YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok to exchange thoughts and ideas that may not meet your approval. Parents don’t have access to their social network. We don’t even speak their language.

I have taken an active role to regain my power as the primary influence on my offspring. You can, too.

Rule No. 1: Family time is mandatory. That means we are all eating dinner at the same time at the table.

Rule No. 2: No cellphones or media during family time.

Rule No. 3: No headphones when we are in the car. Either share your music (and it better be appropriate) or you listen to whatever the driver (me) is playing. So if you can’t appreciate the best of Mint Condition, then you can just walk.

Rule No. 4: Once-a-week mandatory family movie night and I am the program director. I decide what feature film to show. Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” or the classic “Lean On Me” starring Morgan Freeman.

Rule No. 5 . . . and this is a tough one: No media in the kids’ rooms. That means no laptop, desktop, iPhone, iPad, smartwatch, cellphone, Xbox, PlayStation. These devices must be controlled and distributed by me, the parent, to those who have earned the privilege. No video games during the week.

Good luck. This will be a tough struggle to regain your rightful place as the primary influence of your child.

Deon D. Price is an author and youth life skills coach who lives in Fairfield. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or through his website, www.deondprice.com.

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