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Some parents may feel guilty dropping off their child during this time of year, but parents say it helps them focus more on what the season is really about. Parent Sarah Webb explains, “It's a lifesaver. It's hard enough to keep your patience in line and everything else let alone having a two-year-old hanging on your leg."
In this fit of sloppy weekend writing, Casey Wonnenberg glaringly omits a clear statement of what the season is about. Given the context, this passage seems to affirm with an embarrassingly straight face that Christmas is all about ditching your inconvenient children and going shopping.
Webb says shopping isn't the only thing that's difficult with little ones around, it's also hard to wrap the presents. She says, “The eyes are always around at the worst possible time, and this is the time of year when you need a little privacy of your own."
Did I miss some cultural shift, some mutation of the American species that has rendered me an obsolete organism incompatible with the culture at large? Every present I got back in the 1970s and '80s was wrapped, and my parents had me home with them every weekend.
But I've always recognized that when I start saying things like, "Back when I was a kid," I've become an old fogey. I'll just need to learn to quit spouting off my obsolete notions of family values and embrace the devaluation of old-fashioned family time in favor of constantly expanding the market for goods and services. Ho ho ho!
I'm a grandma, and when my kids were little, we put them in the kids part of the shopping cart, and put their coats and our coats in the cart, and when we looked at an item, if we decided to purchase we put it in the cart, under the coats, and managed to get stuff wrapped, etc., without the benefit of sitters. Sitters are just another expense in the budget.
ReplyDeleteHow do you ever expect our children to adopt the great American values of consumerism, unless we dump them off, and show them that supporting the economy is of more importance than "family time"? You need to look at the big picture Cory :)
ReplyDeleteCory wrote, "I couldn't help wondering the weekend interns in the newsroom were just joking."
ReplyDeleteIf only it were so. But, you see, TV reporters rely on cliches to fill space between soundbites. And "the real reason for the season" has become cliche. So it's perfect tripe to fill out a script.
I don't write like that, but I guess I'm not exactly typical in this business.
I actually do homework, attend city council meetings, and read court files. Informed writing! What a concept. My news reports actually contain historical and local context, making them relevant to my viewers. I avoid the generic stories that could be done anywhere.
Maybe KELO should hire me to do some newsroom coaching. It's something my current employer has me doing.
Hey, Steve! Maybe KELO should hire you? Absolutely! Send a résumé and come back! Between the clichés on the news and the declining cultural values, we can use all the hipsters, culture jammers, and fellow travelers like you we can get! Keep up the coaching -- we trust you'll keep those reporters clear on their mission to inform, not just look pretty.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of "The Real Reason for the Season," my TV station actually runs commercials with a little girl re-telling the biblical account of Christ's birth. How many TV stations do you suppose do that? But our owner is a very conservative Greek Orthodox Christian.
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