A couple of weeks ago my son and I were listening to a Stephen Colbert interview on "All Things Considered." The interviewer inquired about his adolescent years - Colbert said he was not very rebellious "I smoked some pot and didn't do some homework, nothing major." My son turned to me in surprise and said, "Nothing major? Is that not a big deal?" He was at first shocked. Then seriously and genuinely asking. Then I could almost see the wheels beginning to turn in his brain. He enjoys the Colbert report on the rare occasion he sees it (neither his Dad or I have television) and certainly views him as a respectable celebrity. I realized he was considering that maybe some things that he considered to be 'beyond the pale' were perhaps not.

I don't think Colbert was intending at all to plant seeds in a 13 year old mind that smoking pot and blowing off school work is 'no big deal.' But he did. If Colbert had been, say, a gansta' rapper, or a bad boy sports icon, my boy would have given no weight to his statement. He is quite capable of considering the source. In this case, however, the source was one he deemed worth considering.

My point is that our kids get messages in all kinds of ways that drugs, alcohol, early sex, etc. might be ok. I can't pick that seed out of the fertile ground of his young mind. I can only hope that our further discussion and the values I am trying to teach make germination unlikely.