Since when has “pimping out” your kids become acceptable behavior?
On the main road into Salem, which is both Route 114 and North Street, there is a large car wash. As you might expect on Sunday mornings, it’s not too busy so the owners generously allow charitable groups—sports teams, youth groups, and so on—to conduct charity car washes. The kids do all the labor and they get a sizable cut of the proceeds.
Now, in order to bring in the customers at this slow time (and let’s just skip for now the discussion about more and more events taking up what was once the sacred Sunday morning church time), some of the kids stand out on the street with signs and gesticulate and plead with passing motorists to pull in.
It all sounds so innocent and wholesome so far, doesn’t it? It would except that nearly invariably the kids chosen for the enticement duty are teenage girls in bathing suits or halter tops and shorts. Madison Avenue has taught them well: Sex sells.
What really bugs me are the parents, especially the dads. Are fathers okay with this these days? I would never, ever allow my daughter to be used as some kind of sexual advertising gimmick for anything, charity or no.
Yet you see folks who are apparently okay with it.
As a society we’ve hypersexualized our children, yet we’re shocked that the moral fabric is decaying. We allow them to be used in a sexual manner to peddle a product, yet we’re surprised when perverts prey on them.
Here’s my message to all you dads out there: Don’t let your kids be used this way. (And this isn’t limited to girls either; your sons should not be used in this manner either.)
Children do not exist for the gratification of adults, in any way, shape, or form. Protect your kids from it.
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