Recently there was another example of the media’s focus on parenting.
On the Jan. 11, 2009 program of MSNBC’s Meet the Press, a great deal of time was spent on the importance of parenting well. Bill Cosby and Dr. Bill Poussaint were two of the guests on that day’s show. They have written a new book entitled, “Come On, People.” Another guest quoted in the following excerpts is Rep. Maxine Waters.
A transcript of the show and the video is available here. The parenting portion was during the second half of the program.
Here are a few short segments from the transcript:
MR. GREGORY: One of the things that really strikes me about this book, “Come On, People,” is that as a parent with three young kids, I think it just has a transcendent message.
MR. COSBY: Yes.
MR. GREGORY: Which is that parenting matters.
MR. COSBY: Yes.
MR. GREGORY: That you got to be involved in your kids’ lives, you got to let, let them know that, that you love them.
MR. COSBY: That’s true.
A little bit later in the program this was the exchange:
DR. POUSSAINT: . . . Parenting is very, very important and that needs to be emphasized. And the fact that the president is talking about that, I think we need to talk about it much more so that, you know, it’s not just single parents or two-family homes, it’s whether you’re a good parent or not…
MR. GREGORY: Right.
DR. POUSSAINT: . . . I would like to see, like, a national conference call, you know, on parenting…
And then this:
REP. WATERS: Let me tell you about this parenting issue. I have–or we just had a Black Caucus retreat, and parenting emerged as the number one concern in that retreat.
And now the final excerpt that I will share is this:
MR. GREGORY: It’s interesting, Bill Cosby, to tie a couple of these things together. There’s actually been some research done by the so-called “Huxtable effect”; referring, of course, to your program “The Cosby Show,” which we all watched in, in the ’80s. There was something you said about this that, that comes together, which is what this family demonstrated is that they were in control of their kids, they weren’t losing to their kids, which is something I said to my wife last night. I said–or actually, I said to my six-year-old. I said, “No, son, I’m the boss here.”
Meet the Press on that Sunday morning focused on issues in the black community. Yet, the issue the guests in the second half of the program kept coming back to was that of parenting well.
Parenting well is not a racial issue. It is a universal issue for all families. Raising healthy kids is dependent on parenting well.
I am thankful that there are more and more instances where the importance of parenting well is being highlighted in the media. All of this attention on parenting well will hopefully elevate the consciousness of all parents in our society to seek out the supports they need to keep on parenting well.
