One hundred bottles of beer on the wall, one hundred bottles of beer

Revised and corrected.

Last fall I chaperoned the then 8 year old, then 3rd grader's class field trip to a local art museum.  We traveled by school bus.  40 kids, six adults.  That was probably the first time since I was in 3rd grade I'd heard all one hundred verses of One Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall.

Yesterday the Cub Scouts took a trip to New York City to see the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.  We traveled on a chartered "coach."  A bus with all the amenities.  Nobody sang One Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall.  Nobody sang anything.  Nobody played I See Something or 20 Questions or The License Plate Game.  Nobody played any games, unless some kids I couldn't see in the back seats had Game Boys.  Practically no one looked out the windows.

The bus had a DVD player and eight monitors stragically positioned, four over each row of seats, and almost all eyes were glued to the screens to watch Bionicle 3 on the way down and The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie on the way back.

I'd come prepared.  When I chaperoned another class field trip in the spring that bus had a DVD system too, so I knew what a horror lay in store for parents.  I had my Walkman and Jonathan Kellerman's Rage on tape.  The 9 year old, who was sitting with a friend, didn't feel ignored, but he felt cheated on the way back.  He didn't mind watching the Bionicles on the way down.  But he's seen SpongeBob  more than enough times to satisfy him.  He'd brought a book to read but he couldn't concentrate on it.  He tried to talk with me, but that meant sitting with me and not with his friend, and he was torn.  Eventually he went back with his friend and slumped in his seat and watched the movie with the bored, distracted, slightly grumpy look of a Cubs fan watching this World Series.

Now I frankly hate the whole idea of watching TV in the car.  I don't care how far you're traveling, I don't care how antsy your kids are, they don't need to watch any more TV and you don't need that distraction.  Yes, I know wild kids are a bigger distraction, but if your kids can't amuse themselves on a trip and you don't have a traveling companion to help keep them entertained and relatively docile, dope them with Mickey Finns an hour before setting out and let them sleep it off on the ride.

If you are one of those timid, namby-pamby, over-protective parents who shudder at the thought of drugging their children, try this.  Books on tape.

It was bad enough that the DVD player had to be turned on to amuse---that is, pacify---the kids.  But the dad in charge of the trip made the mistake of letting the kids vote on what to watch.  He should have asked the parents.  I happened to glance up a couple of times during the Bionicle movie.  It was appalling.

First off, it's an hour and a half commerical for a toy.  Second, it's badly made.  Third, it is as violent and frenetic and amoral as a video game.  (Yes, I could tell all that from just a few glances, because it was also stupid and obvious.)  It is not anything the blonde and I would let our kids watch at home.  And if we heard they were watching it at a friend's house, we'd tell the friend's parents that our kids aren't allowed to watch that kind of junk.  The blonde would probably not use the word junk.

She can be tactful sometimes.

One of the things that drives me berserk is listening to people who don't have kids brushing aside the concerns of parents on things like video games, TV shows, pop music, and pop culture in general.

"If you don't like it, turn it off!"

First, you turn it down.  Doesn't do me any good to not play certain music in my car if you have your windows down and your CD player cranked up.

Also, you could watch your mouth in public.  Sailors, at sea, under enemy fire, curse less.

And what's with the t-shirt?  You're a grown person!  Dress like one.

That's the problem with the Turn it off/Don't let them watch advice.

How are we supposed to do that when as soon as they set foot out of the house they walk into it the same as they walk out into the air?

Their whole world is polluted with it, visually and aurally.

And before you think I'm about to advocate V chips and censorship and maybe even a return to the Index, read this next sentence carefully.

The biggest pollutant is other people's children.

Read this next one carefully too.

This is another way of saying that the problem is parents.

Not Hollywood, not the Media, not degenerate Liberal Values.

Parents.

Me first.

We are lazy, inconsistent, hypocritical, and, when you get right down to, dumb.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

The kids on the bus yesterday didn't want to watch TV nearly as much as the parents on the bus wanted them to watch TV.

As far as I've been able to make out in my 12 plus years of being a parent, what most parents of my generation want first and foremost out of their kids---even before wanting them to do wonderful things on the ballfield or in the classroom that will reflect well on them, the parents, and shine their, the parents', egos---is for the kids to shut up, sit still, and leave them alone.

Oh, we all talk a good game.  I'll bet you a hundred bottles of beer that every parent on that bus would tell you that they value a good education for their kids, that they are careful about what their kids watch and consume, that they are disgusted by the hyper-materialism of the culture we are raising our children in.  It's probable, given where we live and the fact that this was a Cub Scout field trip, that a majority of the parents on the bus are church-going Republicans and self-avowed social conservatives who at the snap of Fast Billy Bennett's fingers can launch themselves into rants against the hyper-sexualization of the media and the general assault on "traditional" values.

But I'll also bet that their homes are full of the stuff they profess to despise and want to keep from their kids and that the examples they set contradict the values they preach.

Liberal parents, we aren't off the hook.  Our houses are full of that junk too and we say we hate it just as much as conservative parents say they do.  But while they duck responsibility by blaming it all on Hollyweird and godless Liberals, we duck it by saying things like, "I played/watched/listened to/smoked/drank/did the same sorts of things when I was their age and I turned out all right."

Who says we turned out all right?

And what's the principle being defended here?

That no amount of sex, drugs, and rock and roll is bad for kids?

Or that nothing we did when we were young was stupid, destructive, immoral, or unhealthy?

I think social conservatives are less self-aware or less honest with themselves than Liberals on this subject because the social conservatives, being for the most part also conservative Republicans, won't confront the real driving force behind the corrupt pop culture they despise and fear---capitalism.

There would never be a naked human being in another second of another movie or TV show if it could be proved that pretty naked bodies didn't sell tickets.

What's more, their focus on sex as the only corrupting force---as a corrupting force---blinds them to other and more destructive corruptions.

The Parents Television Council just released its list of the worst shows in prime time for family viewing.  The top four are all Fox soaps and comedies, which isn't surprising.  But the Council's list of best family shows includes American Idol and Extreme Makeover.

Think about this.

What's best for your family to watch is a show that promotes, celebrates, and rewards, not talent, but celebrity.   You don't win for singing well.  You win for looking and acting like a star while you happen to be singing well.  What's best for you family to watch is a show that tells you that if you want to be happy, spend a lot of money, time, and energy on redecorating you face.

Both shows teach that the first and most important values are narcissism and self-aggrandizement.

I'm mad at myself.  I knew the bus would have TV screens and I didn't speak to the Pack Leader beforehand to request that either no movies be shown or that parents get to pick.  I could have stood up in the middle of the Bioncles and said something.

But besides being mad at myself for my lack of gumption, I'm feeling like a hypocrite too.  I condemned the Bioncles as overly commercial, senseless, violent and stupid, but our house is practically a shrine to Star Wars.

We don't let the guys play video games but we let them play games on the computer.  The computer games are supposed to be educational, but most of them aren't really.

I tell you not to let your kids watch TV in the car, but I'll bet I let mine watch more TV at home than you let yours watch.

Our kids read a lot---the 12 year old was the top reader in his age group in our library's summer reading program, thank you, and the 9 year old has vowed to win his age group next summer, and when he sets his mind to something, he does it.  That's how he won most improved speller last year, not that you'd know it by reading his school work---but they read too many comic books.

I have no business lecturing you on how to raise your kids, I know that.

But I know one thing.  Next time we go on a field trip?

Before anybody gets a chance to put on a DVD, I'm standing up and starting to sing.

Loud.

"ONE HUNDRED BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL, ONE HUNDRED BOTTLES OF BEER..."

Major Correction:  A commenter who wishes to remain anonymous points out that the Parents Council put the Home Edition of Extreme Makeover on their list.  That goes with their choice of Three Wishes as another of the best shows for family viewing.  Both shows' premises make me a bit queasy.  I'm not sure it's really charitable to get a sentimental thrill spying on other people's need for charity, but at least both shows are meant to be about helping others.

Comments

[Rasselas]

Interesting. I would have thought that, for the contemporary self-consciously resigned and fatigued parent, "reading comic books" meant "reading, by the grace of God," rather than "reading comic books, when they could be reading timeless gems like Goosebumps and Harry Potter and the Atheistic Supernatural Boarding School."

[Shakespeare's Sister]

The biggest pollutant is other people's children.

This comment reminds me of my mother, the English teacher, moaning about how she sent me off to kindergarten with perfect grammar, and I came home speaking in slang, leaving my participles dangling all over the place, and ending my sentences with prepositions - the horror!

Of course she'd never had to be a 5-year-old whose classmates looked at her like she was from another country when she squeaked at her teacher, "In which cupboard would you like me to put the markers, ma'am?"

[MoXmas]

So I read comics for a long passle of years. I still haven't thrown out the boxes and boxes I have of them, though they're currently in sotrage. But I haven't bought them in some while, in monthly form. Why? Because the narrative is so disjointed, and the retconning is so aggressive, that I don't have time to keep the stories straight.

Which would make comics perfect training for kids who grow up to be readers of experimental lit. I had no better training for reading Joyce than trying to keep the continuity consistent in the DC universe. And the current X-MEN? Between movies, cartoons, and the various monthly books? It makes ULYSSES read like a Hardy Boys novel.

Encourage your kids to read MORE and MORE comics. It'll only help their SAT scores later.

(Just avoid CEREBUS. It would be too hard to explain or figure out the switch that happened in the narrative once Dave Sim got religion and everything got weirder than weird -- though still a work of genius. CEREBUS makes ULYSSES read like "See Spot Run".)

[Linnet]

And what's the principle being defended here?

That no amount of sex, drugs, and rock and roll is bad for kids?

How about that parents can't, and shouldn't try to, protect kids from everything? And that a lot of what parents worked up about isn't harmful to the children's welfare so much as squicky for the parents' sensibilities?

Of course I'm not a parent, so all I say should be taken with a huge helping of salt. In fact just three years ago I would have qualified as a "kid." So maybe I should be ignored on this subject. But if I ever have kids, my solution to the Bionicle problem would be to watch the damn movie with them and then have a discussion with them about why it was stupid, above all else.

[Tricia]

You nailed it once again, Lance. I think (emphasis on I, meaning my and only my opinion) that popular culture today is crap. Maybe I think that because I'm over 40 now, maybe I think that because it really is. Whatever. In my house, we don't watch ridiculous half-hour sitcoms that promote promiscuity, materialism and generally stupid behavior, or any type of reality shows, or anything else that I don't like (I even mute commercials - I'm a fanatic about it - because 99.9% of them insult the intelligence of any average person) - because I'm the mom and it's my duty as a parent to show my children (OK, one of them is 21 and in college, but still) what is appropriate and what isn't. This is not to say that they haven't seen or heard of these things - they are not social outcasts - but they know my opinion of it, backward and forward, and as they get older and own TVs of their own, they will have been raised to know what is worthwhile and what is a colossal waste of time. The choice will be theirs.
What do we watch? A short list:
Red Sox baseball. Virtually every game. There's always something good on all summer long! And my daughters can relive famous plays and quote stats with the best of them.
X-Files. If you watched it, you know why. If you didn't, you never will.
West Wing: We can dream, can't we?
When I happen to catch them: Law & Order, CSI. Blood & guts, but tastefully. Most of the time.
I like old black & white movies. If the kids want to sit and watch, we have a good time dissecting them. If they don't, that's OK too.
It's the same with music: my kids know a lot of Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton and Harry Connick Jr. because that's what I like, and what I wanted them to get to know. If they want to listen to other stuff, that's why they have walkmans.
I guess I sound overbearing about this, but when it comes to culture, I feel strongly that I want to pass on my values to my kids. Whatever else the world shows them, they will be armed with what I consider to be of value.
>whew< Sorry. Thanks for letting me rant.

[anonymous]

To be fair to the Parents Television Council, the "Extreme Makeover" recommendation is for the "Home Edition," where a family in need (widow with nine children, kid with severe asthma, that kind of thing) gets their home redecorated/remodeled for free. "American Idol" is, however, repellent.

[mac macgillicuddy]

"but if you're kids can't amuse themselves on a trip and you don't have a traveling companion to help keep them entertained and relatively docile, dope them with Mickey Finns an hour before setting out and let them sleep it off on the ride."

You can also pass the time reading aloud from Strunk & White. ;)

[Charlie Tangora]

You know, as a video game programmer, it gets my hackles up every time someone declares that they don't play/let their kids play those awful things, because I believe very strongly in the potential of games as an art form (otherwise I wouldn't be devoting my life to it) and I'm currently playing Shadow of the Colossus, which is such a staggering masterpiece I can't imagine anyone having any problems with it.

Then I walk by a display for Blitz: League, or Grand Theft Auto: A Whole Empty Continent Where Everyone Still Acts The Same But You Can Hijack The Space Shuttle Now, or War Warry War War: The War Game, and I'm like, "Oh, right. That."

*sigh...*

[Lance]

Charlie,

My actual problem with video games is the amount of time they can swallow. Some of the games the 9 year old shows me in that I know I can't have this but gee, it's nice to dream way kids have look interesting enough that I'm almost tempted myself. And like I said, I'm a hypocrite because I let them play computer games. Their time on the computer seems easier to monitor and limit but I'm probably just rationalizing.

Linnet, nope, your views should not be ignored. Make sure you keep them coming here. But sometimes kids want to be protected from things. They would rather not have had to see the vivisected corpse or the graphic sex scene at all; the discussion afterwards with an understanding mom and dad is a good thing, but they still want you to cover their eyes the next time.

MoXmas,

I still have most of my own comic book collection too. I should probably have written "too many comic books relative to the number of other books they read." But there is also the problem that most comic books are now written and drawn for 24 year olds not for 9 year olds and because it's hard to know which is which, I figure better safe than sorry.

Sis,

I went to Catholic School. We all had to talk like you tried not to or Sister Mary Anthony got very grumpy.

mac,

Your right. I'll fix it. I've got some other typos to fix to.

[Exiled in NJ]

We sang 99 Bottles on our bus trips to the "Safety" picnic, then my wife told me the songs her mates would sing on trips from her exclusive private school in Bucks County: lots of double entendre, and one about black sox never getting dirty. Next time I took a long bus trip was guiding 23 18-23 year olds from Rome to Venice on a hot August Sunday. We had an 8-track player and three tapes: the Eroica, Tea for the Tillerman and Let It Bleed. After that I would probably sign up for Bionicle or even Three's Company reruns.

[Pepper]

I write reality tee-vee reviews, and I wouldn't let a kid watch any of that stuff. Best-case scenario is that the kid thinks a camera crew will rescue you if you find yourself in a bad spot. Worst-case scenario is that your kid turns out to be William Hung.

[PZ Myers]

Why would "99 bottles of beer on the wall" be better than some stupid video? Both are mindless pap.

On my last long trip with the kids, we spent the hours trying to top each other in outrageous lies (I think we started with tall tales about how corn reproduces -- drive through Minnesota and the Dakotas, and that's what comes to mind).

[Lance]

PZ, Believe me. Listening to the 3rd graders sing all of 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall was not one of the highlights of my life. But singing mindless songs has two advantages over watching mindless videos---the kids have to interact with each other and they are entertaining themselves. Depending on their parents' moods, they may also be interacting with their parents and entertaining them, as well, although I'd like to meet the parent who could be entertained by 100 b.o.b.o.t.w.

But I've got a bigger worry right now. Both you and NJ have refered to the song as 99 Bottles. I've always thought it was 100. Which is it? We need a definitive answer here, which I hope, thinking of future class trips, turns out to be 15 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.

[PZ Myers]

Schism!

Since you like it so much, I could suggest the syncretic answer: 9900 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. To stretch their little geek minds a bit more, do the countdown in hex.

[Lance]

PZ,

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggghhhhhh!!!!!

Yours affectionatley,

Lance

[sfmike]

In Mexico, a country I adore, there is a new, horrible development. They play mostly horrible Hollywood action films on all their long-distance buses with the same set-up you described with the sound on full blast. I had to sit through "Terminator 3" and "Bad Boys 2" among other noisy crapfests on a recent trip, so on my last visit I just got wise and bought some ear plugs. It worked wonders.

As for kids, some want and need to be protected from the culture, others don't. As you well know, they're all different.

[Claire]

Haven't there been lawsuits brought against some of the producers of those home makeover shows? Something about how they leave the house a mess and not up to code and how the homeowners are left with some expensive repairs? I can't remember exactly...

As for comic books, my brother, who ended up in art school and is doing well for himself, swears up and down that he learned to draw hands because of comic books. Hands aren't easy. And as my mother says, if you've got a dreamer who doesn't like school, send them to art school. It will teach them a thing or two about time management and deadlines. It's like ROTC for the artistically inclined.

Great post Lance!

[burritoboy]

You don't really want to know what I recommend for my nephews. I gave the 15-year old copies of Jim Thompson's Pop. 1280 and Tim "Love" Lee's Confessions of a Selector. I hope potential future wives are not offended when I force the kids to watch The Steel Helmet at age 9. Samuel Fuller as education teevee, that's my style.

[GaijinBiker]

Everyone slams comic books, but the Marvel and DC comics I used to read when I was a little kid (like from 4-10 years old) had some pretty advanced words (for some reason, dolt and canonize are two I remember learning from them). As long as the stories themselves aren't actually offensive, just be glad your kids are reading, even if it's comic books. It'll help their vocabulary and it beats watching TV.

[GaijinBiker]

99 bottles of beer? I can't believe you would encourage your children to embrace binge drinking!

(Or are you not doing the "take one down, pass it around" version?)

[Red Tory]

I couldn’t agree with you more that “The biggest pollutant is other people's children” (and, by extension, their idiot parents). Unfortunately however this is the same line of argument that a good number of wingnuts employ in defense of insulating their children from "mainstream" culture and thought. The most common example of this reactionary behaviour is by home-schooling them to prevent the troubling ideological and cultural contamination that might otherwise occur.

Bit of a sticky wicket there…

[mrs. norman maine]

I could go on and on about this topic, but it's a little late in the game, and I'm already wondering if I'm up to a passionate defense of "The Sportswriter" from your latest post. (Beyond "You're wrong, wrong, wrong!" I mean.) (But on the other hand, you're obviously spot on re: Wodehouse).

So I'll confine myself to the Major Correction: I've not seen "Three Wishes" but here's a pretty funny blog entry about why I might have to tune in. Whether or not I should do it with the kids is another matter, but I do admit we apply a certain snark factor when watching reality TV.

http://velcrometer.blogspot.com/2005/10/grant-this-so-i-happened-to-catch-few.html

[The Viscount LaCarte]

Interesting. See Item #7 here.

The Viscountess and I are considered "liberal parents," and we disconnected the cable. The kids complained a little, but they got used to it quickly. We are very pleased with the decision. Lots more talk, reading, homework, musical instruments being practiced, etc. than ever before.

[Tom]

I think that most kids who are getting into comics are reading manga. American comics seem to fall into two categories: good ones, which are relatively few in number and written almost exclusively for adults, and the superhero comics, which are mostly pretty awful. (The plotline of the big DC Comics crossover "event" was precipitated by the rape and murder of the wife of a minor superhero, and the plotline of the big Marvel Comics crossover event was precipitated by the descent into madness of a superheroine who found out that the children that she'd thought she'd had with her android husband did not, in fact, exist. Comics: your greatest entertainment value!)