Timeless Wisdom: The Innocence Of Children: Why It Is So Important – And How We Can Protect It

Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com.

Because I'm really—

I'm truly delighted to be here. Having those words is difficult It almost felt like it was my eulogy. It was so positive. I'm not used to it, you have to understand. I spend 3 hours a day being told why I'm wrong, why I'm terrible. It's a little jolting to hear such positive things, so I'm very, very touched. You were very eloquent. I've got to tell you a story, though. I debated whether to tell it, but I figure we're all adults. So some of you will leave regretting I came, but it's not off-color, don't worry. It's worse. It's much worse than off-color. How did it come up? It came up in the reception. Oh yes, of course. Where's that lovely woman? Where are you? Yes, now what's the name of the church? St. Stephen's. St. Stephen's Lutheran Church. I've got to tell you a story. Are you ready? So you still have time to leave after you hear this. I was invited by one of the most beautiful human beings that I have been privileged to know, Pastor Cap Johnson, Lutheran minister at St. Stephen's Lutheran Church in Northridge. I was invited to be the speaker at his investiture as the new pastor of that church, which is nothing radical except for the fact that it's a Lutheran church, and I'm a Jew. He was totally at peace, he invited me, I mean, we're like brothers, I love him, he loves me, and it was fine, it was a beautiful service, I don't think I said anything untoward or anything problematic. However, the next morning was the Northridge earthquake. The Northridge earthquake, not a the Northridge earthquake. You with me? So I called him up. I didn't— I actually— the first thing that occurred to me after I made sure my house had not fallen was, poor Cap. Is anybody going to call him and say, you see, you had a Jew speaking at your investment firm? Sure enough, I called him months later and I said, Cap, I've been curious for so long. Did anybody mention in passing? He said, "Yeah." I just wanted to share that with you. Let me put it to you this way: if there is a Chatsworth earthquake tomorrow, I will rethink my speaking schedule. I will tell you that. So we are hereby put on notice for what could happen. All right, let me tell you, it's a beautiful place to be. And to the Pacific Youth Lodge and the Enchaminad. You do such wonderful work, and it's so wonderful to be invited and to be among you. This is an interesting title that has been given to this, "Children Should Talk to Strangers," which is pretty much typical of my approach, that you wake people up with an idea that is the opposite of the received wisdom that children shouldn't talk to strangers. My talk will be about preserving the innocence of children. And one way that you preserve the innocence of children is you don't scare the living daylights out of them. Most of you are parents, and I have to tell you that as a fellow parent, it is very, very difficult to do one of the most important things that we can do for our children, and that is preserve their innocence while they are preadolescent, while they pre-puberty. I think that it is our task, as much as it is to give them room and board and love, we have to protect them from losing their time in the Garden of Eden. That's how I look at it. You don't get a chance to go back. There are angels with fiery swords at the entrance to the Garden of Eden. We can't go back. Once you have taken a child's innocence away, there's no return. Just as we can't return, and I believe the Garden of Eden really is the story in many ways of this, of innocence and then loss of innocence. What after all was the first thing that Adam and Eve knew when they ate of the fruit of the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil was that they were sexual beings. They knew that they were naked. And I'm going to come back to that theme because obviously sexuality is one of the primary things that we try to keep from them so that they can develop into it naturally when they enter puberty and become aware of it. We live in a society that, if they could have— it's sad for me to say this to you, but if somebody could have developed a script, "How can we destroy children's innocence?" they would have developed the script, have them raised in late 20th century America. My battle, and I have 3 wonderful children that I'm blessed with, but my youngest is 7, that's my battle. My biggest battle is with society, not with him. I mean, he's a project, believe me. I call him a project. I mean, all kids are a project, each in their own way. But he's not nearly as challenging as the society is. I have to allow him to live and breathe, and yet keep him innocent. Not keep him, that's the wrong words. Allow him to remain what he already is. I don't want him to be innocent when he's 16. No, no way at all. I want him to naturally progress. Let me tell you the way I look at it, and it's become— those of you who know my radio show know that I, you know, I beat this drum constantly because I'm so angry at how we rob children of their innocence in this society, and parents need to know about this. I look at it this way: Ecclesiastes, which as it happens is not my favorite book of the Bible, it's a little too pessimistic for my own my own taste, but there's a tremendous amount of wisdom in it. And it has, I think, one of the luminescent ideas of the Bible and of all of life in it. There's a time to cry and a time to laugh and a time to play and a time to work. And it just goes through all the time to live and a time to die. And if you understand that, it is very good. It's good advice on how to live a life. There is a time for each. There's a time to play, and there is a time to work. And it's— you know that, I know that. I would add there is a time to be a child, and there is a time to be an adult. In America today, we've actually reversed things, where we treat children as adults and adults aim to be children. And I truly believe that they are related, these facts. I actually believe— I don't have proof— I admit this, but I suspect that something is awry in people's lives forever. That doesn't mean they can't function. Of course not. People, thank God, we have the ability to improve our lives at any time in our life. But I am convinced that if you miss out on the childhood innocence that you have as a birthright, There will be something lacking forever. And again, it doesn't mean you can't function well, you can't marry, you can't love, but something is missing. It's like that is the— the childhood is the base of our building, okay, if we are— if I can liken us to a building. And if the base is weak, then you can build something on it, but it is never quite the same as one that had the proper base. The base is that childhood. Marie Wynne is a woman who wrote a great book which opened my mind to the problems of television. It's called "The Plug-In Drug," and she has a very powerful phrase. She said, "It used to be parents' primary goal to protect their children. In the last generation, American parents have decided to prepare." their children. This is a tremendous insight. The task of a parent for a 6-year-old is to protect the 6-year-old. It is not to prepare the 6-year-old for life's vicissitudes. You know how you prepare a child for life's vicissitudes? By protecting it at that age. When you have that solid foundation that you can believe in life, that there is goodness that the good guys win, then you can deal with the bad news that happens. Sometimes good guys lose, etc., etc. But you can't be told that at 6. The amount of foolishness that surrounds our children from the educated classes is just— it's mind-blowing. And it's the well-educated who really have led the assault on children's innocence. It's not the person in the street. It's really been led by the people who should know better, the well-educated. You know, by the way, I'm sure many of you have heard me do this, when somebody makes a particularly stupid point, calling me up, you know I ask them what graduate school they went to. That is, it is now instinctive for me to do that. Because there are ideas that are so stupid, you had to have learned them. They don't come naturally. You have to study them somewhere, they don't normally come to people. The idea that you prepare children for adulthood at 6 is a stupid idea. You protect children. They have a long time to learn about a lot of things, give them those 10 years or whatever it turns out in that child's life Let them have that. Anyway, don't we even enjoy it? I don't even understand what a parent's desire might be. You don't know how crazy it gets. Every Christmas time I have this on the radio about, "Should you tell your children that Santa Claus is not real?" Now, this is— the number of ironies in my doing this show are awesome. First of all, I mean, I don't celebrate Christmas for religious reasons, and here I am defending Santa Claus to Christians who want to tell their kid that he's not real. I mean, you know, it's like bizarre, and the whole thing is bizarre. What the hell is the matter with you? I don't believe it, and I'm telling you this. I pinch myself sometimes at what role I play. So here I am, so they call up, and this is the argument of the really well-educated. It's got to be an educated parent, sophisticated. Dennis, we believe in honesty. This is a '60s approach. You know, "Hey, we know that Santa Claus isn't real, we're gonna tell our kids." At 4. No, that's right, that is what they believe. "Hey Dennis, come on, you, the big man, you always talk about honesty and truthfulness. Well, you're gonna tell your kid a lie?" That's the argument. I said, "I don't tell them— don't tell them anything! I didn't tell you to tell them a lie. If they ask, tell them the truth." Although the truth is a very interesting truth, we'll talk about that in a moment. But they aren't asking! 4-year-olds don't ask, "Is Santa Claus real?" It's only the parent who decides to inform the child that a lovely part of their life and their Christmas is not so lovely. That they're being bluffed. Now, if I'm being bluffed about Santa Claus, am I being bluffed about God? Am I being bluffed about, in the case of a Christian, Jesus? I mean, you know, where else am I being bluffed? Did George Washington live? How do I know? But of course when you get older, you know there's a difference between Santa Claus and George Washington. But this is the idea though, we have to tell them. Again, it's preparing them, not protecting them. What is the big deal for a child to have this joy of believing that there's a Santa Claus visiting with the toys? What does it cost you? That's what I don't understand. What do you gain? I know what your child loses, I'd like to know what do you gain? But it is all over the place like that. Parents think that if they find something childish, their child will. I mean, I know an adult who would never give the child Winnie the Pooh. He thinks it's silly. Well, that's pretty silly. That he thinks it's silly. Winnie the Pooh was not made for 40-year-old men, okay? That's not designed that way. Of course it's not for you, of course it's silly for an adult, although the truth is I'm an adult and I've been watching it now for 6 years. And I don't find it silly at all. I think they're totally endearing. But again, I'm not 40, so who knows? Maybe, you know, maybe once you cross 50, then you start going backwards. I don't know what happens. I'm very confused. But anyway, it is these ideas, you know, you gotta be honest, you gotta tell them everything. I'll tell you another one. I mean, I actually get this. You know, this is why God has a sense of humor. He gave me a talk show. And they figure, you know, Dennis, you can't live in your theological cocoon. You gotta get out there and see what people think. And that's how I look at it every day. I mean, otherwise, I mean, we all surround ourselves with people generally that we're in sync with on values, right? But for a living, I talk to people I'm not in sync with. You know, at least not all the time. There's some wonderful, you know, calls of agreement and so on. But I mean, I hear a lot, and that opens my eyes to what's going on out there. Do you know that educated parents have called me to tell me that I'm totally wrong on protecting kids from sexual knowledge? They don't mean sexual intercourse, sexual knowledge. And why, Dennis Prager, what are you, naive? You don't know that children are sexual beings? Now here's another stupid idea. Of course children are sexual beings, but they don't know it. And it's not our duty to tell them. Of course little boys look at their mommy's breasts. Hey, welcome to reality. We don't know that? Of course little boys and girls touch themselves in private areas. Of course. But you don't announce it. You don't have to tell them, "Well, I think that's beautiful self-stimulation and autoeroticism in my young child. Oh, this is, this is—" Oh, beautiful, beautiful. The kid's still wearing a diaper and hearing about autoeroticism. The child doesn't know what it is. Of course the child is a sexual being, but it doesn't know it. And it is not our task to tell the child if the child plays doctor. I played doctor, but I didn't have a conscious sense of sex. I had a conscious sense of wonderment, Oh, it's curiosity, a whole host of things. You all did something like that. So what? That's part of growing up. That's part of wonderment, which you're supposed to leave. It is not my task to tell them. But our schools decide to tell them everything as soon as possible. God forbid we have an innocent child. That's how this idea arose, by the way. This very idea arose of, you know, children should talk to strangers. Because parents, you know, among other— you know how I came to this whole thing, children should talk to strangers? I'm a stranger to most of the world's children, you realize that, as you are. And I talk to everybody. In airports, elevators, anywhere I am, I talk to people. I love strangers. I'm a stranger fan, okay? Never been hit by a stranger, hurt by a stranger, molested by a stranger. It's unbelievable, but it hasn't happened. Of course, it doesn't happen to almost anybody. Did you know that? I'll give you statistics in a moment. But in any event, I remember clearly saying, you know, making some stupid face to a kid at the airport once, you know, sitting at a terminal. I mean, this is an airport, you know. The parents are sitting there, and the kid panicked. The kid ran to them. Now, of course, little kids always run to mommy. But this was bigger than a little kid. This wasn't a 3-year-old. It wasn't a toddler. It was a kid. Just scared. It was clear the kid was taught you don't talk to strangers. Even in front of the parent. Now, I'm not a dummy. You don't have kids walk over to cars, you know, as they're stopped at red lights and say, "Hey, you have any candy for me?" Obviously. I mean, you take prudent precautions. Anyway, how often are kids not in our sight anyway when they're little? I mean, by and large, they are. You know what the risk of your child being abducted by a stranger is? Approximately 1 in a million. Okay? It's more likely that they will be hit by lightning. More children have heart attacks— okay, did you ever hear of a 5-year-old having a heart attack? I haven't— than get abducted by strangers. If they get abducted, it's by relatives and friends of family. If anything, if you only talk to strangers, you have a better chance of doing well. I mean, is that amazing? I mean, statistically, if kids only talked to strangers, no relatives and no friends, they would do better. I mean, that's how bizarre the whole thing is. You know, that's reality. Of course I love that my kid talks to strangers. I talk to strangers. Sometimes I'm in an elevator, you know, and I kid around. And I'm not talking about, you know, I'm 6'4" so you think a 5'2" woman is going to cringe. Alright, that's possible. But I mean men! And I will start saying something and, you know, they go, "Yuck!" I mean, you know, I didn't say, "Gee, I really like your clothing." It's unbelievable sometimes. Now, most people love stranger talk too. Most people are okay with it. But you could tell some people have been frightened since their childhood by this notion, "Oh, a stranger talk?" Ooh, I don't know, can I trust this person? What a lousy way to walk through life. You know, it's just a terrible way. See, you'll get hurt. I don't mean you'll get raped or mugged, God forbid. I mean, so somebody will betray you in some way. So for that you lead a closed life? Isn't that a horrible price to pay? See, that's the irony. Adults protect themselves too much and don't protect children. See, children should be protected, but we shouldn't walk around with big protective shields. I mean, again, you're sober about this. So parents just don't know what to do. They think that they have to tell their children the schools— I'll come to the schools in a moment. Back to the parents, though, for a moment. Clothing. I mean, sometimes you see little girls dressed— I mean, you saw the case, the horrible case, because she was murdered, JonBenét Ramsey. I mean, it's unbelievable to dress a girl like that. It is unbelievable. It is, to my mind, one tiny notch higher than child molestation, to have a little girl dress as if she is a seductive woman. It is so horrible, and yet it's done so commonly, you know, in these types of contests, beauty contests or what have you. I just— it's unbelievable. Or let, you know, girls, little girls walking around in clothing that they shouldn't be wearing. And you know, I'm no prude, I'm not talking about adult women. Adult women is a separate issue. I'm talking about little girls. Let them have their time of innocence. And boys too, obviously. But you know, boys' clothing isn't as obvious. Although I will tell you, this is not a matter of innocence, it's a matter of something related to it, concept which I have to spell on the radio. It's sexual modesty, M-O-D-E-S-T-Y, because it's a non-issue in today's world. But my little guy, for example, who has a— who's wonderfully athletic and has a wonderful little body and so on, and I don't want him to grow up to, you know, look in the mirror and say, "Oh, I'm great," and the self-adulation and narcissism that is taught in this society. And so he wears his Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls jersey, and he can wear it when he plays basketball, but I ask him to wear a t-shirt underneath it when he's in the house. And I explain, and I will explain the only way I can get away with this because it's a religious home, which you will understand, or certainly most of you will relate to, and so the idea of modesty. You don't show everything to the world. I mean, it is just unheard of today, but that too protects innocence in its way, the idea of some modesty in the way a person dresses. So where did this begin with the stranger? The stranger began when I started seeing some of these reactions that I would receive, and then I realized that as actually, like almost a course in schools or parents called Stranger Danger. People would call me up saying their kids were taught about stranger danger. I said, "Really? Is that so?" And so they would be told about stranger danger, and then I started realizing, do you know how much your kids are frightened if they go to a typical public school? Do you know how much they are frightened every day? I mean, I made just a little list. They are frightened, of course, there is now in Los Angeles, What is it, Red Ribbon? Is that what it's called? Red Ribbon Week or whatever it is, where kids wear red ribbons. Including, I was told by parents at a talk I gave last week, and we're talking about the finest areas, we're not just talking areas that are drug-infested, you know, drugs are not cool armbands. The kids can barely read and they have armbands against drugs. Now, you might say, "Look, it's never too early," and that's, by the way, what the ads say. The ads from the U.S. Anti-Drug Administration, the whole anti-drug thing, is you have a 3-year-old looking at an adult, and the whole sign— these ads are in all the papers all the time— "It's never too young to talk to your kids about drugs." I, excuse me, I dissent. I think that it is too young to talk, unless it is a real danger in the area your kids are, and other kindergartners are shooting up heroin, I frankly think, or, you know, or taking a joint at recess, I must say there is a time when it is too early. Absolutely, I believe that. It is not a time— I'm not worried about my kid having drugs. And if you are sending your kid to a school where you're worried that kindergartners are being offered drugs, how do you keep them there? I mean, I don't understand it. One, something's gotta give. If you really believe that your child getting drugs in kindergarten is a danger, how do you keep your child there? And if you don't believe it's a real danger, how do you take their innocence away with another fear? Fears in children are induced by adults. They have their own. They already have their own monsters and bad people. They know this. I don't need to add to their list of fears, but the schools bombard them with fears. Red Ribbon Week. Kids are telling their parents when they see them drink coffee, that's a drug, caffeine, caffeine. Our parents tell me this, they are told this. Caffeine, after all, it's addictive, or whatever it is. Or it's mind-altering, as we all know coffee just makes you homicidal. Just the other day I read, after drinking coffee, this guy in Honolulu went off on a deep binge. That's a joke, he had no coffee, I have no idea if he had coffee. Or my favorite, of course, smoking, the new evil of our society. Does smoking kill? Yes, smoking kills, okay? Kills 1/3 of cigarette smokers. It's a fact, everybody knows it, okay. What are you telling that to kindergartners about smoke? Then they go home, see the father light up a cigar, and tell them that he's an addict. I get these calls all the time. People aren't making it up. They sign their names. My kid the other day— you may have heard it on my show— parents calling up. The father took out a cigar to smoke a cigar. So, and as I have often said, what do kids think who are told this? What do kids think who are told that smoke is a drug? That tobacco is a drug, they must think that Winston Churchill was an addict, Franklin Roosevelt was an addict, Yitzhak Rabin was an addict, their grandparents were addicts, some of their parents are addicts. Isn't that stupid? Dangerous is fine. Addict? Would you care if your pilot smoked a cigarette before flying you to Europe next time? I suspect you couldn't care less, but you certainly would care If he had a joint, you certainly would care if he shot up some heroin. I mean, what are we teaching here? We're just scaring them, just scaring and scaring. Oh, there was a song. Michael Medved, with his wife Dr. Diane Medved, wrote a very important book, Saving Childhood, I beg you to read it. It's all about this. He was on a show that I recorded for Fox TV yesterday about raising children, and he sang a ditty. I don't remember the words, but it was something, it's like, it's an ad. Where, "Hush little baby, don't you cry, but all your friends are about to die from AIDS." This was a ditty that some, you know, government, anti-AIDS thing teaching. Now that's important that 5-year-olds and 6-year-olds and 7-year-olds know about AIDS, isn't it? It's a very large group. I think that we should start teaching them lightning. About lightning. You may die from lightning. You know, far more kids are killed in swimming pools than from tobacco or from lightning. I think we should teach them now drowning danger. You know, I want you to know, look, kids, you may die in that pool. That's absolutely right. Show them videos of kids who've drowned. I think it's— I don't know. I think it's the next thing. I remember this when I was younger. Remember nuclear war education in elementary school? Elementary schools? Now that's important because elementary schools really could fight the nuclear war. It was important for kids to know about this. What were we doing? Why did we teach that? Nuclear education. You know there's death ed in elementary schools now? Death ed. That's right. Death education. Because after all, a lot of kids are committing suicide. So it's important now to talk to the whole class about death. Visit cemeteries. This is— I think aside from everything else, after smoke, drug, AIDS, stranger danger, what was the last one? No, not the pool, just the last one I mentioned. Oh yeah, nuclear and so on. When is there time to teach? When did they learn math? "Sorry, no math today. Death. Death today. I'm so sorry, we just don't have time for math. We'll be discussing the methods you should not use to kill yourselves, kids." How— I had none of this when I grew up. Do you understand? None of it. There was suicide when I grew up. There were sexually transmitted diseases when I grew up. People died of smoking when I grew up. There really was a nuclear threat when I grew up. And I learned none of this. I truly grew up innocent. I actually believed that the world was good. How bizarre. That the world was secure. That I was secure in a loving, basically loving world. Everybody has family problems, everybody has— kids have enough to deal with just to grow up. Again, let me cite the Medveds, because they have a terrific three-prong test, if you will, or definition that applies here that a child should have. A child should have security, optimism, and a sense of wonder. Security, optimism, and a sense of wonder. We kill them. The security is totally knocked out with all the fears. You will die from X, Y, Z, A, B, C, or D. That is what schools are now in business for is, to my mind, scare children. Okay, then of course, a sense of optimism. The sense of optimism is shattered by so much of this stuff when we take them out of their Garden of Eden. Let me give you an example. The— one of the first things, and I'm so happy I have a young child at this age, because, you know, I see more, I understand more, and one of the first things he asks whenever he watches, and I'll explain, this will be a very important part of my talk, I'll talk what he does watch, what we allow him to watch. Whenever he watches an old-time Western, let's say, he always asks, "Will the good guys win?" It is absolutely critical for him to know that the good guys will win. And of course, every single video that we allow him to watch, the good guys do win. He doesn't have to know at that age that good guys don't win. He'll find out. Is there anybody in this audience who hasn't learned that? Gee, how did you learn that? And I'll bet some of you had innocent childhoods. By golly, it seems to work out, doesn't it, later, that we learn the bad news that sometimes good guys lose. But I want him to have optimism. Good guys fight bad guys, and they may suffer and so on, but in the final analysis, the good guys win. Anyway, isn't that the religious message in any event? That in the final analysis, you know, God will win? I mean, isn't that essentially even us? Or I guess to many, we're also innocent and naive. But that is ultimately our faith. Otherwise, how do you go through life? If I thought that in the final analysis, you know, the moral forces arrayed along with God lose on this earth, I would despair. I wouldn't do any of my work. I would go, I would crawl into a hole. I am entirely motivated by an ultimate sense of optimism. That doesn't mean immediate, doesn't mean I won't get hurt, doesn't mean you won't get hurt, but in the ultimate sense, that is the religious message, right? It's an optimistic message. So we're going to deprive that of 5-year-olds? To 5-year-olds, that they can't have an optimistic message in life? So we undo their security by bombarding them with fears. Remember, there's 3 things. Security, optimism, and a sense of wonder. We get rid of their security through bombardment of fears. We undo their optimism by telling them, you know, the great truths that we want them to learn very early, from Santa Claus to bad guys winning. And then we undo their sense of wonder. This is a very important thing. A sense of wonder. What is the opposite of a sense of wonder? The opposite is cynical or jaded. Do you know what I find among young Americans the most, and the most depressing, is how jaded they often are. Nothing seems to bring them any awe. There's no awe, there's no wonderment. Do you know, when my wife talks to our youngest child about the moon, or the sun, or flowers, and he gets excited. I am so grateful to her and so grateful to God on his behalf. Do you know how many kids already at his age, nearly 7, have no awe about a sunrise, about a full moon, about gorgeous flowers? They would laugh at it. They've all— because they've had, you know, too many adrenaline-producing things. This doesn't shoot adrenaline, a full moon, like a video game of shoot 'em up and kill 'em. It doesn't. TV knocks the sense of wonderment out of people because you are so bombarded with stimuli and sensations, there's nothing left to be in awe of. This is so sad. That's why, you know, I knew this when I was in high school, I must say. It's not the point that I'm making credit for myself, it's that I thought about these things at a very early age, and I wrote in the diary. I wish I had kept it up, but in high school I kept up a diary. And that's when the word "cool" came into real fashion. "Hey, he's cool, man. He's cool." And I thought, even then, that's not a good word. Cool means dispassionate. Cool is the opposite of warm. Who wants to be the opposite of warm? People should be warm, not cool. The very notion of cool— and the cooler you are, the more jaded you are, the less awe, the less innocence, the less wonderment, right? Hey, I'm cool, man. You think I'm going to get into watching a full moon? Give me a break, right? Or does anybody say, hey, full moon, is that cool? No, that's not cool. We have destroyed this sense of awe in children at the unbelievably early age. And by the way, it's something you need to protect. All of us at every age need to protect the sense of awe. That's why— and I think it's very deeply related, though not exclusively, to a religious outlook on life, and I'll come back to that as well. As well. So, of course, all of this brings me to the greatest robber of children's innocence, and that, of course, is television. Television, I really now am clear on TV, and I would like to share that clarity with you. If you buy a gun for your home, you know that you can't let your little child have access to it, correct? The instrument is not a problem, it's that you don't want a child next to it. There are a whole host of things. There'll be magazines that may come to the house, catalogs that may come to the house you don't want a 7-year-old to have access to. So we have in movies and we have in our mind the idea This is reserved for adults. I finally figured out if you look at the television as reserved for adults, your problems are over. That is the way in which a parent should look at a television. This is for adults. TV is not for little children. That's the way it is. That is the way, and I'll tell you how, at least we, and this is just one family's approach have worked this out for our young child. We have TV sets, but he never watches TV. And so what he watches are videos. So he has the sense of television, but none of the corruption. And let me tell you the number of superb videos out there. That you can choose that can help your child. I mean, you know, from VeggieTales, if any of you are familiar, to stories of the Bible, to, for that matter, you know, The Wizard of Oz and some John Wayne movies as they get a little older. Because these things— it's not violence per se. I don't care if my kid sees good guys fighting bad guys and the good guys winning, so long as it's not, you know, heads blown off and gore. That's okay. I lived with Westerns as a kid and I was still innocent. I would stand in front of the mirror as a kid and draw against myself. I never won. It was amazing. He always had the gun out there when I didn't. But I would stand there going like this all afternoon drawing against myself. I had no violent streak. You know, it's like the thing I'll never forget. You know, I fell into some of the well-educated nonsense. Not a lot, but some. Like, for example, don't let your kids have toys. Toy guns. Okay? So I didn't let my first son have toy guns. Then, however, I saw at about the age of 6, he started making guns out of rye bread. So I figured, instead of wasting bread, I'll buy him toy guns. I mean, you know, it was so silly. First, you know, my oldest son is as gentle a soul as God has put I put in this world. The thought that, you know, toy guns is going to make Al Capone out of my kid was not a danger to me, okay? It was not an issue. You know, we focus on— it's unbelievable, the same people who will never give their kid a toy gun think it's foolish to, you know, to protect innocence. They're worried that they'll grow up to be violent. That's not the problem. It's right now is the problem. Right now is the problem of their innocence. So give your child the videos that you want. I hope— I love movies. I'm not anti-movies. I love movies. And, you know, I hope that my young child will see all the great classic films. That is one of our hopes for my child. By not watching TV, we'll have a library. I mean, now that there is videotape, we are very fortunate. And, and I tell you what, he picks up from some of these wonderful Bible tapes that are, that are made out there They are just extraordinary. They're fun, they have great values, and instead to think that he could watch regular TV— why would I want that? Even if the TV is good, you have commercials. The commercials are robbing of innocence. I finally watched one TV thing with my younger son, the Super Bowl, because he watches sports that I allow with my older son. So that's fine with me, sports. I have no problem with it. So we decided, and I'm always curious to see the Super Bowl, so I was watching the Super Bowl with my little guy, and the ads were unbelievable. One more violent than the next for movies coming out that you have to see, and then the crème de la crème, a— oh God, what is the great catalog? Victoria's Secret catalog ad. The woman shows up, you know, in scanty lingerie. Now, I— it's a non-issue to me for adults, but it's sexual bombardment. It's not the thing that I need for my— if I had a girl, if I have a boy, it's not what I need now. You can't escape it. Even the Super Bowl. It's just a football game, but then you get the ads. So if you take the ideas that I am offering seriously of guarding your child's innocence, the TV is the undoer of it. Now, of course, then there is the internet, but 5-year-olds are not on the internet, and if your 5-year-old is on the internet, it's a big boo-boo. There's no way, you see, I have figured out there's no way that I know of to control the internet. I'll never forget, I typed in Bach, I am a deep lover of classical I teach classical music, as some of you know, and I wanted to see all the websites that were related to Bach. And it goes, you know, Bach, see this, Johann Sebastian Bach, see that, and then gorgeous girls. How did gorgeous girls get into Bach? I mean, you know, if you type in breasts and you really want breast cancer, I totally understand, you'll get 7,000 websites. To show you that part of a woman. But, bah! You can't avoid it. It is just unavoidable out there, and it's— I don't mind that it's there, I mind that it's unavoidable. That's the problem. And so I don't think a 5-year-old should be on the internet to begin with. By the way, in regard to the computer and the internet, the only solution that I know for any of these things is to keep the computer in a room where you are there as well and not in their own room. I hate to say this because it's so logical to have a kid have his computer in his room, but again, I owe this to my wife's wisdom. We built an office where I work and we set up computers for the kids to work and it's a— they knew it when we built it. This, we will all do our computing in the same room. It's good for a whole host of reasons. It makes the family closer. Why should people retreat to their own rooms? I mean, I understand this, that's the way, it's the modern way. Do you know though that people having their own rooms is a very brand new idea in civilization? Now, I like the idea of own rooms, a degree of privacy, especially in adolescence, is very good. But why do they have to use the computer alone? Why do they have to be away from me at whatever age they are living in the house? And it has been a very wonderful thing since I built this office for me and my children. Because inevitably we'll also talk. You can't sit in the same room with somebody unless you hate each other and not talk. Which sometimes they do, but that's, you know, perhaps part of parenthood. As I always say, kids are going to hate you anyway, you might as well do the right thing. That's one of my mottos. But by and large, I don't tend to get those emanations from my kids. This is a battle that we wage. The solution on the TV, as I said, is the tapes. And so finally, I come to the issue of religion. I gotta tell you, I mean, you know, and this is pretty much preaching to the choir, as they say, but you know what, it's funny, because I talk so much people who disagree with me. It's very good to preach to the choir. It's a common put-down for talking to people who may share your values, because the choir needs ammunition. So I have no problem if you even agree with me on the following, making the case for it. Religion is, I believe, so essential to a child's life that even if you're an atheist, you should give your child religion. You know, I have made this case in LA Parent, I wrote a piece like this, you should, even if you're atheist, you should give your child religion. Let me just turn this tape over. I wrote this article that, you know, a responsible atheist parent can, in good conscience, send his or her child your child to a religious school? And I gave— it's not a perfect analogy, but it's a good one. Let us say you can't stand classical music. You hear it and you're bored out of your mind. You just don't like it. You have no sense of reality. There's nothing to it for you. Will you deprive your child of piano lessons because you don't like Bach? No, nobody would say that, because they would say, "Look, I don't relate to it, but it could be good for my child," right? People do that all the time. You say, "I don't relate to it, but it may well be good for my child." An atheist parent, unless you believe that religion is bad for children, can easily say, "Look, I don't happen to believe it, But I want my child to have a choice. See, the idea, again, only intellectuals could come up with this one: I will give my child no religion, but as an adult I'll let them choose. That is like saying, I will not teach my child Chinese, but as an adult they may choose to take up Chinese. No, it's not the way it works. You give them Chinese, and as an adult they'll decide what language to speak. People don't, you know, Some do, thank God, but generally speaking, it is very important to try to give certain things when people are young. And so, of course, I think if an atheist can say, "Yes, it's a good thing to have." People call me up all the time and say that. "Dennis, I don't believe, I wish I believed, but if my kid can believe, that's fine with me." Parents think they have to put their doubts in their children. Believe me, life will supply enough reasons to question God in the normal scheme of things. You don't have to be the supplier. Life will be the supplier. When loved ones die early, when evil triumphs in different parts of the world, believe me, life will supply enough reasons. They'll go to college, they'll get a secular brainwash, They will have enough time, which is what it is. They will— I mean, listen, if, you know, let's be honest, you know, it's so interesting to me. People will say, you know, if you go from kindergarten through college to Christian schools, you've been brainwashed. I say, that's correct. Now please admit to me that if you go from kindergarten to college in secular life, you've been brainwashed. See, there's only religious brainwash to the secularist. There's no secular brainwash. If the only approach to life you've ever learned is secular, then that's not an open education. Give your child this chance. What does it have to do with innocence? The ultimate sense of the three things I mentioned—security, optimism, and a sense of wonderment—are all tied into to God and a faith-based life, including as an adult for that matter. In the final analysis, my child believes there is a God who governs the universe. You know what security that gives to a child? That doesn't mean nothing bad can happen. We don't teach God as a celestial butler. But God is there. He watches over us. God is good. A good God governs this world, my child. You don't think that engenders a sense of security? For that matter, in adults. By the way, I am absolutely convinced that the fears that grip American adults—they walk from secondhand smoke to you name it and must—and they walk around frightened of strangers and frightened of this and frightened of that has absolutely everything to do with the secularization of America. I am convinced secular people, generally speaking, are more afraid in life than religious people. I have no doubt about it. You know, my life is really, I realize, dedicated to showing the difference between religious and secular life, right? It is not— I can't prove to you there is a God. There's no such thing in my opinion. No such thing as a proof there's such a thing as a God. You know, proof is only when it's empirical. God is not empirical. But I can show time after time the consequences of there being no God in people's lives. And people are more afraid. There is a greater sense of meaninglessness, insecurity. Of these things. How could there not be? So if it's true for adults, it's certainly going to be true for children. Optimism? What is there to be optimistic about if you don't have a God? Remember in one of the films of Woody Allen's early films, Woody Allen is about an 8-year-old, 9-year-old boy, and he's sitting in Coney Island in his parents' apartment, which keeps rattling because of the roller coaster outside. And they take him to, I guess, some sort of therapist or something. And what is his name? Dennis Prager. No, no, that wasn't the movie. Annie Hall. Annie Hall. And what was his name in the movie? The little boy, because I remember it's— Alvy. Is that it? Alvy Singer. Yeah, right, Alvy Singer. So, Alvy, Alvy, what's wrong with you? What's wrong with you? And he goes, "Do you not understand?" And I'm paraphrasing now. "The world is going to come to an end. The sun will explode in 2 million years." And the father goes, "What's wrong with it? 2 million years." But he's right. Alvy is right. What's the optimism? Everything's going to explode. The whole thing is going to go bust. What is the optimism? There's no afterlife. There's no God. There's no soul. Hey, and I'm an optimist! About what? Carl Sagan, one of the leading atheists of the 20th century scientific and media America, was on my— when I had a national TV show, he was on, so we debated a little. And I'll never forget, he said, Dennis, you know, in his mellifluous voice, he spoke very beautifully, Dennis, when I look at the stars and at the galaxies, and I realize how utterly insignificant how insignificant we are. I thought, that's beautiful. That's so beautiful. I mean, do you realize? And an atheist walks around knowing that. We are nothing. Zip. Nada. That is what we are. Now that's really, that engenders optimism. My child, I want you to know that when we look up at the stars, we realize that Mommy and Daddy and you have no meaning or significance whatsoever. But I want you to sleep well tonight. Have sweet dreams. I mean, isn't that— even though it may not be articulated, isn't that the message? There is nothing. Zero. Nothing. We are coincidences of molecules. And sense of wonder? What's the sense of wonder? Well, you can— I mean, Carl Sagan had a great sense of wonder. Wonder about science, but I have to say that secular wonder is very different from religious wonder. "How great are thy works, O God!" You see, to believe that it all came about by itself, which is a plausible possibility that I just don't happen to share, doesn't engender quite the same wonder. Holy what? Coincidence. That's what it is. Coincidence. Fluke. Doesn't engender the same awe and wonder that design does, right? And that's a fact. So I have it too. God, it's amazing what you have done. It is amazing. I look at these things, the intricacy of the cell. But if you don't have a God who made an intricate cell, what do you say? I tell you, mitochondria blow my mind. Golgi bodies, endoplasmic reticulum, I'm blown away. This has really made my day. It doesn't quite work that way. Of course there is no— you don't have the awe, the optimism, or the security. Now, people will say, "Yeah, but you have all of those things, you religious people, because you believe in nonsense." Well, that's another speech for another time, whether this is all nonsense. Given the results of secular thinking— Marxism, Nazism, men and women are basically the same, and some of the other ideas— ideas that are prevalent among intellectuals in the secular arena, frankly, I will happily have a contest between religious nonsense and secular nonsense. So, you give a child this God and religion, you give a child ritual— you know how ritual engenders security? To know, you know, whatever your ritual, your religious ritual might be, not only religious, even just home rituals, you know, that every night we do this, or I wake up every morning and I give you a hug, whatever it might be. Ritual gives children security. We have a ritual in our religious Jewish home, for example. Every Friday night we bless the wine, we bless the challah, the bread, which is rather familiar to you. And so, If we didn't do that one Friday night, I know that my children would be a little shaken. Not a little, a lot shaken. There's a deep stability in life knowing every Friday night we will do this. Every Saturday night when the Sabbath ends, the sun has set, we have a service called Havdalah, which means separation, separating the holy day from the secular day. And it's again a candle we have, and we have wine, and we have spices that we smell, so to speak, to revive us for a week of secularism. And I didn't make that up, by the way. Now I tell you, you know, being normal and, you know, I don't want to go through this, find the candle, find the spices, find the wine. Close the lights, get this ready. So sometimes I'm frankly willing to go without it. Every time my 6-year-old will insist, "When are we going to make Havdalah?" And boy, does that get me running up and getting the candle and the spices. His week isn't quite normal if we haven't done it. These religious rituals which you have and I have and and most religions have, and by the way, when religion doesn't have it, it's tragic. There is a paucity of ritual in some of Christian life today, which is— I feel bad for Christians. Just today, in fact, I was taping for Fox Television a show on this very issue of ritual, and by sheer coincidence, it's not a religious show, there was a pastor on who has developed a ritual for 13- and 12-year-old boys. And I said, "Boy, oh my God, it sounds very much like my religion's bar mitzvah." He said, "Where do you think I took it from?" I mean, this was on television. And you don't know what it has done, what it does for a boy at 13, not to have some silly jukebox party, but I mean to have a real serious bar mitzvah. He is now, we call him, we say he's a man. You are now a man. You gotta change tapes? Just as I'm about to end. Okay. Alright, fine. So he knows that he is a man. Ritual allows security. And so all of this is from God and religion and to give a child this sense of security. You know what else security is? It's there's something higher than mommy and daddy. That's very secure. We're not the only authorities in this world. It gives a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning, and love. I mean, all the good things. Religion can be done wrong, don't get me wrong. Not every religious home is utopia, as you know. Okay? I always say religion is great when it's done right. But that's true for everything. Cars are great when they're driven right. I mean, what is— great no matter who does it? Nothing. So I leave you with this: the Garden of Eden is a place for children. It is our task to allow them to live there until God and nature remove them from the Garden of Eden and they are prepared to know that they are naked in this difficult world in which we live. And every day that my child can watch a Winnie the Pooh and not be jaded and say, "This is silly," I consider it a victory in my parental task of protecting my child. Thank you very, very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Of course, I'm going to check the weather tomorrow morning in Chatsworth. This is my one remaining worry. Let me take time now for any questions, comments, or brief alternate speeches that you might have. I guess— oh, there are microphones here, so good. I won't have to repeat questions. Why don't you just, you want to come forward? I see there's a hand back there. Do you feel free or do you want to do it from there? Yeah. Okay, sure. I'm really curious, did you watch that series on video?

Yeah. I've been reading about it.

Harry Potter series. Yeah, the Harry Potter series. I haven't actually seen it, so I need to be on record as of saying that. However, you know what I do? This is an interesting thing for you, you know, in life. Do you know a lot of people— I know this, and I hope it's true— that there are people who rely on my judgments on certain issues where they don't know the whole thing for themselves. I have that with others. So when the Harry Potter thing came up, I saw a column by a woman whom I trust tremendously, Mona Charen, and she spoke about it and she said she understands both sides on this, but in the final analysis she thinks it's harmless. And the fact that, you know, she says it's like the Oz, you know, the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz. She says it depends what you do with these fanciful characters, not their existence that should trouble people. And so I didn't see it, but I can only quote to you someone I trust in answering that. Obviously here a parent would have to make his or her own judgment. Yes? It's hard to hear you, forgive me. You want to go to the mic? You feel funny going to the mic? Alright, so yell. Oh, about exposing? What did it say in the ad? I didn't read it. What does it say? What didn't I do? Let me find out what I didn't talk about. Where does it say about other cultures?

This is from the Pacific Lodge.

Did it say anything about other cultures exposing? I don't mind answering you, I just want to know if What I may have not addressed that was— Hmm? Oh, strangers. I talked about strangers. I mean, that was about a third of my talk. About other cultures, let me tell you something. Other cultures is— you mean other ethnic groups, other races, and so on? It's a non-issue to me. I mean, that's why I don't— there's nothing to address. I mean, you know, it's like people call me up and they say, "Well, Dennis," What if your child came home with a black? I say, I want to know if he or she is committed to my religion, or would commit to my religion. That's the only thing I care about. I don't care about the color of an in-law. You've got to be joking. The idea is so alien to my religious ideals. God cares about color? It's the first thing that goes when you're buried. You know, to be honest, you know. It's very upsetting. Here is buried, it looks like we have buried here a Hispanic, black, Latino, Egyptian Laotian. You know what I write, by the way, when they ask ethnic background? I always check off other. Did you know that? I'm subversive. On all these forms, I always check off other and I write Mesopotamian American.

Right.

You're one of the only audiences who knows what I'm talking about. You know, Abraham is from Mesopotamia. He's the first Jew. So I'm a Mesopotamian American. That's all, you know. Absolutely. That's the end of the issue. So you might want to think about that too. You know, you might be, you know, ancient Israelite American. You may, you know, you may like that. I don't know. Ancient Rome. Ancient Roman American. American. I mean, this stuff is just— I find it so preposterous. Here, too, is where religion has such a good answer. We don't— if you're religious, you can't care. You cannot care. I have religion wrong if you care about race. Then I truly, I have to rethink everything if I'm wrong. Why do I care? I mean, you know, our home— oh, I got a great story for you. My older son, when he was about 7 or 8, it was Friday Sun is going down, and we're going to get ready for our Shabbat Sabbath meal, and he comes over to me and says, "Dad, any Jews coming tonight?" We have non-Jews at our Shabbat meal so often that he was just curious if any Jews were going to show up. You know, he didn't care, he was just curious. So that's my answer to the issue of the other, you know. Okay, yes. How do you foster a sense of gratitude and appreciation if you protect them from the fact that there are children who are have-nots? Oh, actually, I don't think I think you have to protect them from that fact. I don't think it destroys their innocence to know that they're fortunate. If anything, it enhances it. We tell them all the time that they are luckier than so many others in having so many of these things. I think gratitude is the single most important human trait, so, because it leads to both goodness and happiness. You can't be good and you can't be happy without gratitude, so it's a very big deal in my belief about raising children. So does that answer you? I'm very, very advocative of teaching that, but it does not destroy innocence. I'll tell you what would: if I showed him pictures of starving children, videos. I want my children to know about the Holocaust. I don't want them to see videos when they're 7. So do you understand the difference? Are you for or against exploring the world of poverty for children who have to live in that situation? Well, it depends what you mean by exploring the world of poverty. Will I make it a crusade in their life to fight world poverty and again show them pictures of starving children? No. Will I make them constantly aware of how fortunate they are and collect things from them to give? We have a charity box in my child's room. And whatever he gets as a gift, a percentage goes to charity. And now it's almost instinctive. A certain amount is going to go to help children who don't have good things. His clothing is sent to children after he outgrows it. This goes, and he knows, to children who don't have such clothing. But we don't have a war on poverty and make him chairman of the the battle. Okay, let's put it that way. Yes.

Okay. So first you spoke about the Garden of Eden and how children are born and they're basically excited. And what I realize is I'm an adolescent and I'm growing up and I'm going through the process where I see the other side of and it seems like when the parents now that are here have children that are in that transition mode where they're starting to learn about, about how the world works, and they're playing ball pretty dangerously close to the outside world, and they see little things from outside, how is the parent supposed to react to the time in between when they're protecting their children and the time when the children know all about the It's a very good question.

You know, it's such a good question, I have no answer. It's just a really good question, you know. I'm only half kidding, because here, the truth is it's another lecture, okay? Because that post-puberty is very different from pre-puberty. It's a different world. I have more— how old are you? 17? I have much more in common with you than you have with someone 5 years younger than you, and I'm 51, okay? So it shows the dividing line is immense. Now, that doesn't mean the day you turn 13, 14 years old, I say, you know, have a nice time with NC-17 movies and every R movie that you want, and I also— there's an evening on the torture devices that I really thought you might want to see as well. Obviously not. There is still the society, to the extent that it has any wisdom left, and it's the rarest commodity in our society now, even the society recognizes what is an R-rated movie. It means that under 17 must be accompanied by an adult. It's restricted. So we understand that 17 is another dividing timeline, if you will. Now here, the truth is, I have discussed this a lot with people I share values with and who are also in the psychological and psychiatric fields, and I think that the answer is partially dependent upon the child, the family, and the context. The other— I could give the first talk as a universal truth. Here, it depends. Some children are quite stable, quite capable of seeing things and not internalizing them. Others will see certain things and it will— it's almost like, if you will, there are people who could have a glass of wine and it has no effect, and others will become alcoholic. There are 15-year-olds who will see a violent movie and ache to act it out. There are others who will talk about the great special effects. It always cracks me up when my son has seen some movies, my older son, that I wasn't thrilled he saw, but he saw. It was fascinating to me that he basically discussed the acting and the special effects. He finds it hard to kill a cockroach. He's a very tender soul, and it's not being compromised wise in his case. I don't know the way my younger boy will be when he's 17. It may not be as wise. It may be a non-issue. There one has to know one's child and, you know, proceed accordingly. I look at it as a cocoon and gradually to become a beautiful butterfly. By the way, this is my favorite metaphor. I think children need to be in cocoons and then they need to to be butterflies. There are some adults who want to remain in cocoons their whole life and never be a butterfly, and there are some adults who want their children to start out as butterflies and never be in a cocoon. I believe in the cocoon and the butterfly, and I say that to religious people all the time. Give your children a religious cocoon education, but so that they become a beautiful butterfly and fly in the world, not so that remain in the cocoon. I say this to Jews, I say this to Catholics, to anybody who wants to listen. So I have no standardized answer for your question. It is an area where a parent monitors the child, sees, have they become jaded? Have they become meaner? Is their language becoming foul? In other words, what effect did movie X or movie Y have? They may have no effect. And if they have no effect, then it is not a big deal. And that's how I would monitor. I would look for the language, the dress, the friends. If I like my kid's friends, if he's not using indecent language, if he is essentially spending his time working out and playing basketball and doing what a typical boy might I do, then I have no signal to worry about the inputs that he's receiving. And that's the way I think a parent has to answer it. You're nodding, which gives me great faith that I have some merit to what I'm saying. Your illustrious principal is going like this. Is it to be courteous, or you actually agree with me? Okay. I just want to tell you, I never count on anything. I'll tell you a story. I started lecturing publicly at 21. 30 years I'm lecturing. That's a lot of lectures. So in my mid-20s, I was in Charleston, West Virginia, giving a lecture and pouring my heart out on some topic. And there was— and I was single. I was in my 20s and I was single. And there was this attractive single, or I thought single, I assumed single, traditional, you know, my age woman sitting in a chair. The whole lecture that I'm talking, she's going— and I think, hey, this is great. And I'm going to somehow during the reception, you know, start a conversation. So I do, and I meet her, and I go, well, how do you do? How do you do? Well, I just want to tell you, you know, I was so touched watching this, seeing you during the lecture just nodding in agreement to so many things I said. He said, "You kidding? I couldn't agree with anything you said. I was doing my mantra." So I, since then, 25 years, I have never— that's why I asked you. I don't know. Is it a mantra? Do you have hernias? You know, I don't know. Okay. Anybody else? Anybody? Yes. Yes, please. Hi.

I was thinking about what was my favorite way to honor my son's innocence. And I think that the way that I enjoy doing it the most is by giving him permission to whatever it is that he's thinking, but I set limits around how he behaves. Does that make sense?

Does that feel right? You set limits on— to protect your son's innocence, you set limits on the way he behaves rather than what?

And how he thinks.

Well, you can't set limits on how he thinks, but you can set limits on what enters his brain.

Well, like, let's say, for example, he was looking at my breasts and he was aroused. Yeah. Okay. Yes. So what I want to do to honor his innocence— yeah— is to normalize what he's thinking but set limits around the behavior.

How do you normalize what he's thinking? Saying, do you find these arousing? No, no, I mean, sure, what do you do? No, really. Well, I'll tell you, how old was he?

He was, I think when I first started responding to that, probably around 4, 4 and a half.

Okay, 4, 4 and a half. So what you might, what a mother I think would start doing once realizing that her son is reacting in this way is not to go unclothed in his presence anymore, not to put a guilt on him, nothing like that. Everything he's thinking is totally fine and normal, but you don't have to react to what he's not saying, in my opinion. In other words, what are you going to say? "I see that you enjoy what you're looking at." I'm not being facetious. What are you going to say? If he makes a comment, says, "Oh, I like mommy's breasts," you say, "Oh, I'm glad you do," and then you know from now on it's bra time, or cover-up time in his presence. Does that not make sense? No, I don't have—

that makes sense what you said. I do it different, but that makes sense. I wanted to share another different way to do it that I think really honors his innocence so that he can grow up without me being more inhibited or having to lose what I think is so special, which is to still be naked together.

Or do you understand? Yeah, but I don't think it's a good idea. I mean, we just differ on that. Yeah.

So, period? Period.

Would you think it's a good idea for a little girl to be with her naked dad? Yes. Okay, we differ.

But what I want to share as another way, without there being anything ugly or inappropriate, how to honor the thinking or the thought. Like when I noticed that my son looked at me different, that made that thought inside me Instead of him being alone with it, I brought it up.

Well, that's to me an example of perhaps sexualizing a situation that is very honest. He's not saying, "Boy, am I aroused, what a pair of—" I mean, forgive me, but you're putting those ideas in his brain. He's reacting almost involuntarily. Boys look. That's the way we're made. But to then, I mean, you know, I've said this on the radio, I'm very open on this issue. I looked up girls' skirts in kindergarten when I walked behind them up the stairs. If some adult would say to me, "Hey, it's quite a nice tush there, huh?" That would have been shattering to me. That would have been horrible. That would have been abusive to me. I didn't know it was sexual. I knew it was curious. That's all it was. What's under the skirt? Skirt. And so that's what I mean by not putting the words into the child's brain. I don't want them made guilty. There's nothing to be guilty about. But I think, I mean, look, we have a different approach on this particular issue. Yes? What age would a parent not be naked around a kid? There again, you have to play it by ear. I don't want you to be paranoid on this. People have to be, you know, have equanimity in this regard. I can't give you a specific age. I can only say that what is there to be lost by erring on the side of modesty? I just don't get it. I don't know what is gained. You know, I saw Daddy's penis, is that important? Does either a son or a daughter gain from that fact? I didn't see my parents naked, generally speaking. I don't think that it stunted my growth. Boy, maybe it should have, I don't know. But, you know, I just, I don't see the gain in it. It's not saying as soon as your kid comes, you go, I got to get a towel. You know, you play it cool. I get dressed in front of my little guy, but, you know, he was a big thing for him when he was little that we would urinate together, and I did. It was a big thing to him, and, you know, he was comparing, and he, you know, swordplay in the toilet. You know, that's fine. You're all laughing Because you did it, that's why you're laughing. I like you, you're a livewire audience, I must say. Yes. Whether it's about things they do religiously, or what I think of especially friends.

If they had a friend that you thought in your mind was not the right type, would you more likely take the posture of, you know, I can't tell you what to do, but that person doesn't come into my house, or I'd rather have them in the house so at least I can, you know, know what he's doing and get a handle on it?

Wow, is that— did you all hear the question? It's about you have a high school, presumable, let's say high school child. You don't like the child, your child, your son's friend, let's say your daughter's friend, and what approach do you take? They never enter my house, or better, they enter my house so that I can monitor. I'm sorry to disappoint you, I don't have an ironclad answer. It truly, there are so many depends. First of all, can you influence influence the other child. That's a problem. You see, we always assume that that child will influence my child. Maybe we'll influence that child. It's a possibility. It's not a given, but it is a possibility, one that you might entertain. It depends on the degree of negativism that is brought into your child, why you believe that. I will say though, it is my nightmare. Bad peers is my nightmare. So I I take your question unbelievably seriously. That has been my great source of peace in my older boy, was the quality of his friends. And it's also one of the reasons I was so happy that I sent him to a religious school. I think I had a better chance, not a perfect chance, but a better chance than just, you know, the roulette of anybody who just happens to live in a certain area. So what you're saying is you would not close off the library? No, I'm not saying I wouldn't close them off. It depends. There are some kids that I would say he doesn't set foot in here. I do not want you to see him. And I feel so strongly about that that we will move. I mean, I'm serious. If you feel that strongly, you may have to do something that radical. But that is the way you let your child know. And I think I would move over that more than almost any other thing, sooner than any other thing. That's how much peers are powerful in a person's life. So often you hear parents lament when their kid got involved, you know, in like Columbine or so on, "If only he hadn't fallen in with that kid." I'll bet half the time it is true. Half the time it is true that there is one passive And if your kid is the passive, you don't want that child to be with that actor. Yes, please. Okay, then I'll go to you. Yes.

I agree with much of what you said, and I appreciate your conversation. If you could address the contradiction, as you are pro-religion and you are pro-ethnic, child, you are anti-fear. Using myself as an example, being raised in a probably religious family, although these days there are very few, my innocence ended, and my greatest terror was when religion was explained to me, and the concept of hell, as it many recall, was pure torture.

Did you all hear his question? He says it's a contradiction, religious home and not instilling fears, and then he was raised with a very strong hell notion, and that instilled in you. You say you lost your innocence with that because of all the fears. Is that a fair resume of what you said? Well, I took it to be absolutely literal. Yes.

I look around me and the people that were not raised my faith, that we're going to be damned to eternal torture by my all-loving God. I couldn't reconcile that, and that was basically the biggest terror of mine.

Well, this gets us into theology among other things, but so let me react on a number of quick bases and take a few more because I always believe the lecturer should leave before the audience does. So it's one of the old policies I have. And I really appreciate your staying this long and, you know, and this politely. So we'll take two more after this, but I just want to listen. Let me give you a general and then a more specific answer. I said earlier, and I, I, you know, if you, if you heard me just give a speech on that, I could give a speech on that, how religion is done wrong so often. Listen, if religion were done right, everybody would be religious, just about everybody. Let's be honest, okay? The reason that there are so many secular people, there are many reasons, but a big reason is a lot of religious people screw up, okay? And, you know, my first book is on Judaism, and I'm proud to say it's 25th anniversary. I wrote it when I was 26 with my dear friend Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, and it's really a standard text now of Judaism, and it's in many languages. and we wrote in there, it's called the Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, and one of the questions is, how do you explain the— if religion is supposed to make people better, how do you explain the existence of unethical religious people? We were 26 when we wrote that. And we wrote, we wrote at the end of it, here's a deal we'd like to make with you, the reader. If you're not particularly ethical, ethical, I mean, not saintly, but you know, if you cheat in life and so on, please stop being religious. We wrote that plea to the reader of our book. You do so much more harm being bad and religious than if you were bad and secular. So please don't. The greatest sin in Judaism, probably, is chilul Hashem, is desecration of God's name. The greatest good you can do is kiddush Hashem, is to sanctify God's name. You sanctify God's name by acting religious and being a good person. You desecrate God's name by acting religious and being a bad person. Because a lot of people say if somebody wears a cross and does bad, religion stinks. God is stupid and religion stinks, right? They don't say he's a jerk. They say religion stinks. Correct? So people who act religious and do bad things are the greatest enemy of religion. Much better that they should become bad atheists than bad religious. So, I don't know your upbringing, but if they pounded in your brain as a child about hell and damnation and fire and torture instead of the positive messages, it's okay if it what your child thinks. I want my child to think that bad people are punished by God. I absolutely do. It's one of the cornerstones of my sanity. Alright? I must tell you, the thought that Charles Manson will go to the same place as Mother Teresa disturbs me. Alright? It does. I must be honest with you. Okay? So, that's okay, but it's not like we dwell at night, you know, I go, "Aaron, come into bed, I want to tell you about hell." This is not what happens. If that happened with you, they did it wrong, and it is very sad. So there is the only, you know, you speak about fear, I would like obviously a slight sense of foreboding in any human. After all, the biblical concept of fear of God exists, and I believe it's a good idea Because it means I won't fear people. If you truly— humans have fears. There's no way to end all fear. So basically you'll either fear God or fear people, and I'd rather people fear God. But anyway, it's a long answer to a complex question. I don't want to raise children the way you were raised is my short answer. Yes. So you mean, how are educators then in the public school supposed to deal with them? They already have seen so much junk. Well, it's a good question, but I suspect that it's true for the educators of this school too. Most kids watch TV and see this stuff and are exposed to it. How do you deal with it? That's why I don't believe in a secular education for little children. I don't know how they can deal with it in the secular world, frankly. There's no concept of the holy. There's no concept of awe of God. There's no concept of a code higher than yourself. There's no security that the world has an optimistic future. I don't know. I don't know how you do it in a secular world. I really don't. I don't have an answer for you. I do not know how it is done in a godless education. Okay? I don't. I don't think it's doable. That's my answer. That doesn't mean there aren't great teachers in secular schools. Of course there are. Or wonderful people. More wonderful students, of course they exist, and that there were jerks in religious schools, of course. I know that. But as a basic answer, I don't know how you do it. What do you say to them? What do you sing? What songs do you sing that elevate children? Without religion to elevate children, what is there to elevate children? I'm serious. I don't know what there is. I don't know what there is to elevate adults without religion. What elevates adults? This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.