Wednesday, March 14, 2001

For those who think that their actions and words go unheeded by the youngsters around them, I have news.

Long ago, as my family surrounded the supper table, my 3-year-old son announced loudly and as a matter of fact, "This is damn good soup!" Aghast, I demanded, "Who talks like that? My comeuppance came in the form of a wounded glance and a murmured, "you do."

Now years later, the advent of television and the Internet has provided our children a much wider stage for our foibles. The world of our little ones now transcends the front gate, the far fence of the north 40, the school yard and the town limits. They are listening and they are seeing, and what's more, they are comprehending.

As an example of this, I enclose a cartoon which was presented to us, unbidden and uncoached, by my 11-year-old niece, Caity. Think she doesn't see the grim humor in the nitwit actions of grown-ups both far and near? Anymore, it's not just Orwell's Big Brother who is watching. That passed us by in 1984.

Peter H. Van Orden

Peachtree City

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