Dr. Dobson, Trucks, Six-packs, and the Weight of the World
by Connie Scott

A few nights back I was driving back home to Tunnel Hill, GA, children in tow, from a visit with my sister and her family in nearby Dalton. It had been nice. Alexis played Barbies and dress-up with her cousin Emily, while my boys showed off their latest Power Ranger moves to my nephews and beat up their uncle Steve.

La Bohemians, as I affectionately refer to my children, sat behind me on the way home. Alexis, age three, had a death hold on her beloved stuffed dog known to our clan as "Night-Night." She sat between her four-year-old twin brothers with a pout underneath two furrowed blonde brows.

Moments ago, Adam and Aaron had made a game out of tormenting Alexis by snatching Night-Night away from her and tossing it around the back seat. This dog has been the companion and trusted side-kick of my daughter since her infancy. It is a sacred thing.

I issued the usual threats of withholding treats, never buying them anything else again, canceling their upcoming weekend trip to the Fire Station, and finally the ever popular "don't make me stop this car and come back there."

Thankfully, they returned the dog to Alexis and I didn't have to "stop the car" or "go back there." With the Night-Night debacle behind us, it was uncharacteristically quiet in our vessel of transportation.

Britney Spears sung out about not being a girl or yet a woman, and my mind was on important things. Like, if Spears wasn't a girl or a woman, what the heck was she? I thought about the mounds of laundry I had to do, a press release I had forgotten to write, the dishes I'd left in the sink, and a few calls I'd failed to return. Mainly, though, I was just thankful for a few minutes of peace and quiet.

That's when Aaron said something, I thought, profound.

"Mom," he says.

"Yeah?" I answer.

"You know what the main thing is, when I grow up?"

"What?" I ask, knowing that the main thing would be that he grow up healthy, secure and happy. And, that it would be okay if he didn't quite carry the vote his first run for senate - so long as he got it the second time around. Sure, I knew what the main thing was, but was still curious what he thought it might be.

"The main thing," Aaron went on to say, "is that I have a six-pack and either this truck or one like it."

I know what you're thinking already. Classic hillbilly images are flashing through your mind. What Southern boy wouldn't be content with a six pack of Budweiser and a pickup truck, right?

Let me clarify.

Aaron doesn't know what Bud, or any other beer, is. When he says six-pack, he's referring to highly defined chest muscles. The kind that are on G.I. Joe and other action figures. Additionally, I don't drive a pickup truck, but a Ford Expedition.

I sat for a moment wondering what values my children were picking up. Were they already putting so much stock in appearances that the "main thing" would be defined by looking a certain way and sitting behind the wheel of a specific vehicle?

Keep in mind that this little person has only been an inhabitant of the planet for four and a half years.

Recently I sat talking with some other moms while we waited for our kids to finish their TaeKwonDo class. The hot topic of the day was how our boys "weren't listening" to us. That's when one of the mom's recommended Dr. James Dobson's latest book, "Bringing Up Boys."

Every good Christian southerner knows who James Dobson is. Am I right? If Dobson says it, it must be so.

This mom had learnt a lot from "Bringing Up Boys," she said. Practicing what Dobson preached had helped tone down the chaos in her household. Her son was "doing better."

Inspired, I went down to Agape Bookstore in Dalton and bought a copy.

I'm in the "wounded spirits" chapter right now. This is the chapter that tells how young boys in our society are being negatively influenced by the culture they live in. One thing that "wounds their spirit," according to Dobson, is the extreme emphasis on body image that now evades the souls of very young children.

Vulnerability to peer pressure has always been part of the human experience, but Dobson believes today's children and teens are even more sensitive to it. According to Dobson, the reason is that "popular culture has become a tyrannical master that demands ever-greater conformity to its shifting ideal of perfection."

For example, I refer to one of the south's most cherished sons, Elvis Presley. Have you ever watched an old Elvis movie? If so, you might have noticed that the girls parading around in their bikinis were slightly "out of shape." Elvis didn't seem to mind, if the drool on his blue suede shoes is any indication. That's because in the 60's those women were considered the ideal. Not one of those actresses would make it on "Baywatch" today. Not without spending a couple of years in the gym, converting to a diet of lettuce, and undergoing breast augmentation.

Today, extreme thinness and hard bodies are the ideal.

I point my finger at the entertainment industry for setting such impossibly high standards. We are bombarded with images of supermodels selling perfume in magazines, size-3 actresses sashaying across the screen, and chiseled guys like Mark Wahlberg. Well. Maybe the Mark Wahlberg thing isn't so bad, but you get the general idea.

Trying to achieve perfection leads many of us to suffer. Look at Princess Diana and her struggle with Bulimia. To the world she embodied beauty and glamour, yet when she looked in the mirror she didn't like what she saw.

Forget about the entertainment industry for a moment. I'm ticked at Matel. What twisted mind thought up the Barbie doll? I read somewhere once that it is a physiological impossibility for any human person to have those proportions.

After pondering all this a few minutes I asked Aaron why the "the main thing" would be to have muscles and a big SUV.

His answer surprised me.

He said, "So I can drive around and fight evil."

The muscles, he explained, were what would make him strong enough to battle bad guys like "Ransick" (a villain on the "Power Rangers") and "Mojo Jojo" (a delinquent monkey from the cartoon, "The Power Puff Girls.")

The importance of having an Expedition, Aaron clarified, was to get from one evil doer to the next. He also needed a way to haul them off somewhere, "like to jail or China." I suppose all good crime fighters do need a ride. Bat man has his Batmobile, after all.

I had underestimated my son. His little mind wasn't operating on a superficial plane. He was merely concerned with saving the world. That's a noble enough cause. At least, it'll do until the senate thing comes through.

I asked Adam what his "main thing" was.

"I don't care," said Adam. "as long as I'm the Green Power Ranger." Translation, another crime fighter in the family.

I decided to relax for the few miles left between us and home. Our little world was fine. I went back to pondering smaller things than wounded spirits and the negative impact popular culture was having on La Bohemians and the rest of their generation.

Then Alexis says, "You know what, Mom?"

"What?" I ask.

"I'm going to be a Barbie when I get big."

Sigh.

I made the decision to let James Dobson worry about all that. I just wanted to relax for the last few miles separating us from home and maybe not think about anything at all. I just wanted, for a few minutes, peace.

That's when Adam yanked Night-Night out of Alexis' arms, causing her to emit a piercing shrill that only she is capable of.

So much for peace.

Copyright © 2002 Connie Scott
All rights reserved

About the Author

About the Author Connie Scott is a freelance writer who lives in north Georgia with her husband and three children. She frequently contributes to The Daily Citizen-News, The Whitfield-Murray Advertiser, and recently sold her first article to FATE magazine. She is currently working on her first novel, entitled "A Family Thing." At the moment she doesn't have a six-pack - either in the frigifrater (as her daughter calls it) or on her abdomen, but she does have an SUV and she takes the advice of James Dobson when it suits her.