I see a woman who couldn’t be proud of her country that wants me to lie to my children.  I can say with confidence that not only will I refrain from such trickery, I will teach my children that our President’s wife is wrong to encourage it.

by I am Leah

Dear Moms of America,

I’ve got great news for you!

Here you were, wringing your hands, worrying like crazy about how to get Dick and Jane off the couch and outside for some good old fashioned fresh air.

Well, our First Lady had you in mind while coming up with the idea that you could lie to your children to get them to excercise.

I can picture you tapping your forehead with the heel of your palm while thinking, “Why didn’t I think of that?  Here I was attempting to teach my children morals, while actually posessing a few myself.”

On Friday February 11th, during the Tom Joyner Morning Show, our own Mrs. Michelle Obama shared that some “really cute” Public Service Announcements would be airing over the next few weeks and throughout a few more months. In one of them, while the radio hosts chuckle, she states that we need to be creative when suggesting exercise – especially when a child is being raised in an inner-city where things are not as safe as we’d like.

A commercial is then shown where a child in a NON-inner-city home asks a NON-inner city mother for a dollar. The mother looks right at her wallet, and then proceeds to lie to the daughter, sending her on an active wild-goose chase throughout the home for the elusive billfold. Following is the link to the Morning show sound bytes and the commercial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw3wETtDDsk

Great!

While leafing through the pages that summarized the various sorrows our children deal with, the First Lady chose to focus on single-handedly slimming down America. Now she wants us to help her by deliberately deceiving our children and she says its a “cute idea”. It isn’t a cute idea to deliberately deceive your child. This commercial is built on the premise that it’s okay to lie if the conditions fit your personal parameters.

Isn’t this what is plaguing society today? The ”little white lie”?  This country’s leadership has an issue with the truth. Everyone tries to avoid it when caught in a sticky situation, and when they’re forced to take a good look in the mirror, but it doesn’t mean the truth shouldn’t be embraced. Truth is a noble thing that is rare, and when spoken it is health and life to us. Why would we look to tiny deceptions to be our aide when attempting to raise quality men and women who will run this nation when we are gone?

There are more serious issues than exercise when considering the very real dangers that our children face; child trafficking, homelessness, the juvenile system, the foster care system, and even the abuse that takes place in some of those homes, and I could go on.

These warp the developing minds of our little ones while they are in their most vulnerable state. The abuses that many children suffer will affect the lives of their future spouses and the children they will have themselves when they grow up; if they wait to grow up to have children.

Why wouldn’t we as mothers, fathers, and teachers be teaching our children how to embrace the values that will  enrich their character so that they can better face the hardships that fate so faithfully throws our way? Don’t we want them to live healthy and effective lives that will benefit their fellow man as well as themselves?

While Michelle Obama preaches against the fat cell during school assemblies and then climbs into her limousine to head home, our school children ride the bus back to whatever hell they may have come from.  It is you and I, my friend, who will have to take up the baton to help them through the real challenges of life.  Maybe the one in six girls, and the one in thirty-three boys that suffer sexual abuse at the hand of the “friendly” neighbor or “affectionate” uncle, (or worse) can comfort themselves with the fact that at least they’re not fat, while they attempt to fall asleep – riddled with anxiety at what may happen next.

When I look at Michelle Obama, I still see a woman who grew up in a country whose very freedoms and wealth provided her with advantages that thousands of others can only dream of, standing in front of a gigantic crowd – stating that she was never proud of her country until that magic moment. This was nothing more than an unprecedented display of ungratefulness for every suffering the civil rights activists endured as well as the  men and women who sacrificed their lives in a war that earned freedom for the sorely mistreated African-American.

Now, when I see her, I see a woman who couldn’t be proud of her country that wants me to lie to my children.  I can say with confidence that not only will I refrain from such trickery, I will teach my children that our President’s wife is wrong to encourage it.  It isn’t funny.  It’s nothing more than a display of lesser morals and we all know that children learn more from what their parents do than from what their parents say.

I’m going out on a limb here, but perhaps the mother in the commercial would like to go for a walk with her daughter. It’s possible that the daughter may be the one in six who has been looking for an opportunity to open up about what happened with the neighbor.

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