Parental Guidance Recommended

I thought I would share with you this story of parental guidance and responsibility. 

A woman approached me this morning and it was aparent she had a bee in her bonnet. She was renting movies for her son but she was not at all happy with her selection. 

Rather than surpress her thoughts she layed them on the counter before me and proceeded to pound them with a mallet. "these damn movies & games are corrupting my son's mind" she blurted. The movies in her selection were The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The First Blood, Transporter, Bloodsport & Bloodfist. "He's 9 years old for crying out load" she continued.

The expression on my face was less than subtle. "Well if my opinion makes any difference, I dont think these titles are at all suitable for a 9 year old" I told her. 

At this point she recalled a prior discussion she had had with me several months ago about a similar thing. That conversation was about her concerns that horror was an evil genre and unhealthy for anyone to watch. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a HUGE intolerance for that sort of attitude.

Anyhow she says to me "but you are the one who said it was healthy for kids to watch this crap" to which I responded "um, no I never said that and I would never say that. To my recollection I simply said that all genres have their merit and that horror is no less important than the others. This is different all together. These movies all come with suitable ratings and if your son is only 9, then he really shouldnt be watching anything other than G or PG". 

Her response was "yeah well he thinks that G and PG are for kids"

"He IS a kid" I replied.

"But he just wont watch them" she argued.

This woman's stupidy was really beginning to bother me, to the point that I would step over than line and get myself into trouble. And so I concluded the conversation as follows "its quite simple really. These movies and games are not corrupting your son's mind. Your decision to actively provide them to him despite your own concerns is whats corrupting his mind. The movies are rated and are clearly not suitable".

And so thats my story. Artificial intelligence is no match for human stupidity!

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