Another lesson learned

In the headlines this morning I saw this article: “Girl wins concert tickets with essay faking dad’s death in Iraq”.

This is what we are teaching our children.

They are learning that in order to get what you want you have to lie and embellish and dramatize to stand out from the crowd. You have to be a bigger liar than the next person.

They are learning that cheating is rewarded.

As soon as this 6-year-old girl won that contest it was planted firmly in her consciousness that this is the way to get what she wants.

The contest, sponsored by Club Lilly Lu, gave to the winner, a makeover that included a blonde Hannah Montana wig, as well as airfare for four to Albany, New York, and four tickets to the sold-out Hannah Montana concert on January 9.

Hannah Montana is a very popular, Emmy award-nominated children’s television series on Disney Channel. The main character, played by Miley Cyrus, lives a double life as an average teenage girl at school during the day and a famous pop singer at night. She conceals her real identity from the public, so the very premise of the show is based on a lie, a cover-up. And, yes she is the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus of country music fame.

I grew up watching all the Disney classics and every Sunday evening my whole family would gather around the television in anticipation of watching the Wonderful World of Disney as if we were expecting Christmas.

Disney used to have a way of telling a story complete with all the evil in the world being visited upon hapless innocent victims. Through virtuous honesty and purity that victim always came out on top and evil was exposed and shunned by everyone.

We have come to expect the virtues of what a Disney production should represent. They have been the hallmark of honesty, of wholesomeness and of purity for several generations. It used to be safe to expose children to what Disney teaches (preaches). Families used to expect higher standards from a family oriented production from Disney.

As I grew older and wiser to the ways of the world and became privy to widespread behind the scenes business dealings, I realized that Disney, just like every other business we humans becomes involved in, resorts to under-handed methods to get ahead in the day-to-day dog-eat-dog business world.

As we age we all have to accept that adults lie and cheat and steal and commit every crime and sin imaginable against each other.

This 6-year-old girl should not have been subjected to the treachery of adult life at such a tender age. And for this lesson to have been laid upon her by her own mother is unforgivable.

The girls mother, Priscilla Ceballos, told company officials that the girl's father died April 17 in a roadside bombing in Iraq. She had identified the soldier as Sgt. Jonathon Menjivar, but the Department of Defense has no record of anyone with that name dying in Iraq. Only then did the mother admit to the deception.

In an interview with Dallas TV station KDFW she said, “We did whatever we could do to win." This doesn’t sound like a contrite person. This doesn’t sound like a moral person. This sounds like the average, everyday parent bragging that she knows what has to be done to get what she wants. This is how we are raising our kids. It is scary as hell. This is true terror. This is what America has become.