Changing the Definition of Family

                I noticed recently that there seems to be a bit of a trend in the message of a majority of children's media in the past, say, 20 years. When I start going through a list of movies that I have seen, dating back from the early 1990's, most of them seem to embrace the idea that family is not necessarily  blood-it's the people who love you the most. Most of these movies star characters that are orphans or whose parents are divorced and in the end the child comes to the realization that they have a family after all. While I certainly realize that such situations are exceedingly painful, and that no one wants to feel like they only have half of a family, or no family at all, the truth of the matter is that the concept of a family has been slowly redefined in my generation, and will probably be more so in the next.

If you will notice most of the Disney movies that originated in the 1950's featured a child that generally had siblings, and both parents. (An exception would be The Parent Trap, in which the plot of the story is that the girls are trying to get their divorced parents back together.) Movies that were done (or redone) in the 1990's typically feature only one parent, or step parents, step siblings, etc. The conflict between the parents provides an integral part of the plot.

 Now, I'm not advocating the boycotting of movies that use this idea-in my opinion that would be going overboard. It isn't hard for a child to see that the lives of the child and parents in the movie are messed up. My problem lies more with the slow redefining of family than with the plot of the movies.  Upon stepping back and looking at the assertion that family is a group of people that love each other, I see an agenda. If a child's family can be just Mom, or just Dad, or their friend's family that takes them in because their own parents don't care, or whatever...what's to say family can't be two Moms or two Dads? The eroding of the idea that a family is Dad and Mom (who are  married and live together) and the children opens up the door to the idea that family can be two men and their adopted children, or two women.  I think that that is exactly the purpose.

As I look through history I see a slow turn in people's thinking from generation to generation. The idea that ‘the ends justify the means’, or Situation Ethics, is a theme of the kid's movies in the 1950's. Most people believed that right was right and wrong was wrong, but the idea has gradually crept in that it's ok to lie if you have a good reason, or it's ok to steal someone's animal if they're abusing it. The same thing is happening with homosexuality. The idea is being gradually introduced into mainstream media that it is ok to be "gay".

I was reading a parenting magazine last Friday (sitting in the waiting room of a tire shop) and noticed several references to dealing with your kids' school mates that  "have two mommies or daddies" and how to explain that to your kids. YUCK! I sit and watch as kids' shows and books promote this new definition of family, and I wonder, what will my children's generation (and I hope not my children) think of homosexuality? Most people in my generation, while not approving, are used to it.

 It doesn't shock me any more to see two men or women together. It's disgusting, but not appalling. What will our children think, as they grow up with stories that have this altered idea of family? We have been exposed more and more to the idea that homosexuality is normal. There are magazine articles and talk shows featuring homosexuality as normal or "just different." Homosexuals are frequently on reality TV shows, either as guests or hosts. Still, we don't think twice about why this "diversity" has become so prevalent. We don't see the motivation behind the magazine articles and the TV shows. We don't stop and think when we hear "Family can be anyone you love" at the end of the family movie. We seem to miss the rather apparent agenda. Why don't we realize there are forces that are after our children's minds to blind them from the truth? Are we blind already?