“I’m glad you toughed it out. ”

It’s good to try to understand those with whom one disagrees. Some times it’s just easier to understand than others. The Christian fear and shame surrounding human sexuality is an attitude that I simply don’t get.

“re: the “men are dogs” comment, while it was incongruous with her later statements wrt respect I don’t think it negates the need for respect.”

You’re absolutely right. And I did dismiss it as an off-the-cuff remark initially. It was when Leigh (sp?) began talking about how extremely low her tolerance is for disrespect that it made me wonder. Perhaps the low tolerance was not for herself but for your children?

“I don’t think either of us misunderstand disrespect’s role in comedy. The three of us would probably differ on how much disrespect, even in humor, that we are personally comfortable with.”

That makes sense. So it’s a question of ‘how much’. I found Married With Children funny as a teenager, but I doubt I would now. My general rule of thumb now is if it needs a laugh track to seem funny, it’s probably not. Since I consume so little television as an adult, I have no idea where I draw the line today.

“I’ll be glad to listen to any points you have on sheltering children.”

That’s kind of you. I’ll go ahead and hop on my soap box with the caveat that my views might, and likely would, change in the event of my reproduction (a chilling thought for many).
Issue 1: It’s impossible to shelter your children forever. With too little exposure to the less pleasant aspects of the world, they may end up ill-equipped when they actually have to deal with them.
Issue 2: It’s potentially socially damaging when they are sheltered from things that are accepted in the mainstream. Given that rejecting society’s norms is a reoccurring theme in Christianity, I understand why you’d dismiss this issue.
Issue 3: When it comes to human sexuality, you may be burdening your kids with unnecessary guilt and fear. Even if you succeed in sheltering them from all sexual knowledge, they are going to experiment. Their emotional reaction to that will influence the health of their relationships.
It will also greatly inhibit their ability to share problems with you. A sexually active daughter may forgo contraceptives for fear of her parents finding out. Worse yet, she may become pregnant and seek a secret abortion to avoid what she perceives as overwhelming parental disapproval. A sexually abused child may have even more fear about telling his/her parents about the abuse.
Issue 4: This is only an issue from your perspective. You may create the world-view rejection risk. Once you lose the ability to shelter them from sex, violence, rudeness, they may think “This is nowhere near as bad as my parents had me believe. What else are they wrong about? Politics? Drugs? Religion?!?” Since I’m exposed to many exreligionists, I know that this happens, though it seems to happen most often with those brought up in strict Catholic fashion.

“I htink that there’s quite a bit of stuff on tv that isn’t appropriate. Do you feel differently?”

I’m not convinced that exposure to sex and violence in media has widespread behavioral impacts. Some susceptible minority, sure, but my guess is that minority is small. It’s the same with alcohol. A minority will drink to access. An even smaller minority will become alcoholics. But most of us can enjoy alcohol without it negatively impacting our lives. Thus I don’t believe that sex and violence in media is degrading our society. I think they are just convenient scape-goats.
That being said, I find much on TV and movies in bad taste and/or of low quality, but I can’t say that what is inappropriate or not. I’ve never had to examine it. But I do know that it should be up to individuals/parents to decide.

“in the event of my reproduction (a chilling thought for many).”
Heh, well maybe if they get more of their Mom than their Dad? Not that I know B4B that well.
Issue 1: Agreed and I don’t think we’re pro-sheltering them forever. I just think that I’d rather be the one to introduce our children to various topics than the televison. If by some chance the TV gets their first we deal with it and those can make good teaching moments.
Issue 2: As you say, we don’t believe that just because something is “mainstream” that it is therefore good. I don’t even believe that when it comes to my own religious observance.
Issue 3: We’re not sheltering our kids from sexuality. We just don’t think that they need to watch Sex in the City. We got busted once by our oldest (I’ll spare my readers the details) and we didn’t come down on her. We don’t teach our kids to be ashamed of their bodies. They know the proper words for their naughty bits. So I think you’re projecting something on us that isn’t there.
Issue 4: I prefer to think of it as being in a decompression tank. As our kids mature we discuss things on a level that they can understand. If we tell them that something is bad or wrong, we talk about why it is. That way instead of rasing them in an environment where everything is okay (it’s not) or everything is evil (it’s not) we are striving to teach them that things like sex/violence/drugs have good uses and bad uses as you mature, you learn what those are. For instance in our house, alcohol isn’t portrayed as a bad thing in moderation.
I’ve studied enough developmental psychology to believe that early exposure to excessive sex/violence can be a bad thing. How one defines excess is certainly subjective. Thus I prefer to err on the side of caution. Having said that I do think I said something about not being sure if the amount of sex and violence on TV was a matter of causation or reflection. I don’t know that media causes or contributes to the amount of bad stuff in the real world or if it’s just a mirror. I suspect that it’s a bit of both.
And we agree that the decision should be on the parental level.