Home Invasion

Home Invasion: Protecting Your Family in a Culture That's Gone Stark Raving Mad, is a new book by Rebecca Hagelin of the Heritage Foundation. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to meet her and listen to her speak about her book. The bottom line from the book and her talk is that our homes are being invaded by the influences of the world, in such a way, that parents are unaware of the severity of the problem, and when they encounter this encroachment, they are overwhelmed. She gives startling examples of how the culture is influencing our children through every kind of media, internet, marketing, and groups that can benefit from teenager support.

When I got home last night, I turned on my computer and realized how on target are Rebecca's words. I turned my computer on and it took forever to boot up and to get on to the internet. Once I was on, I was attacked with pop-ups. When I left for Nashville, my pop up blocker was working. I did a spyware search this morning and it found 26 surveillance programs that were lurking when I got on the internet. I blocked and deleted the programs, and the computer is now running fine.

How did this happen? My daughter downloaded some music off of a website. I have asked her not to do this many times and because she disobeyed, it will be a long time before she can use my computer again. When I ran the Spyware program it revealed all of the different adware that had entered my cyberspace. Most of it was targeted to teenagers. One was an online dating service.

As Rebecca points out in her book, "it is all about money." The goal of marketing to teenagers is to recruit customers for life. Some of the products are neutral, but many are very harmful to impressionable teenagers.

Parents have got to step up to the plate and protect their children. In Rebecca's book, I really appreciated that she devoted a chapter to fathering, "Help for Dads." She had a great relationship with her father, and it made "a world of difference." The book is an excellent guide for parents to become informed and to be used as a manual.

The phrase from the Bible, "bad company corrupts good morals" came to mind as I read her book. I thought, "this company is growing!"