Like many NNAT parents, I watch the evening news to get myself caught up on all the things I missed during the week. Watching the broadcast a few weeks ago, I found myself shocked to learn that one of the top “news stories” was that “the Kardashians slid off the road in their SUV today.” I’m sorry, but when did a single family’s lack of driving prowess become newsworthy? Why aren’t they telling us what we’re doing to combat ISIS or that we’ve found a vaccine for Ebola or why classroom overcrowding could soon become a thing of the past – something, anything, that matters or that’s life-changing for all of us. Kim’s inability to keep it on the road does not concern me.
As a parent dealing with tough issues – like whether my child will make the cut on the NNAT test – I’m increasingly disgusted with our celebrity-crazed society and long for the bygone days when news and gossip were two decidedly distinct things … when Dear Abby served as our “voice of reason” and June Cleaver epitomized, by most standards of that era, “Mother of the Year.”
The state of today’s media caused me to nostalgically ponder June’s idealized suburban family life of the mid-20th century, when it seemed like women everywhere lived a uniformly picture-perfect existence. Life was so much easier; June’s only real worries were which Jell-O mold she should use, which cut of meat to prepare and what she might find in the Beave’s pockets!
Yes, I know, we NNAT parents live in a very different world today. But truth be told, parents still deal with most of the same issues that they wrestled with back then – even if they’re “packaged” a bit differently.
I have some thoughts on how NNAT moms and dads could stand to take a page from June Cleaver’s book. I’ll share more on that in the days ahead …
NNAT Test 