Frog in the Kettle

I sat in a movie theatre just recently with my 15 year old watching “Paper Towns.” Unfortunately, there was a large group of youth in front of us who didn’t stop jumping up and down and talking the WHOLE movie, clearly unsupervised, which was somewhat distracting.

It was your typical teen movie, nothing new ... or was it? As they finished High School the main plot was about a rebellious, troubled girl (yet the cool one) who discovered her boyfriend had “cheated” on her and so decided to get back at him and his friends and then left town without telling anyone. Of course her parents didn’t seem to care. So the neighbour, a friend at school, seeks to find out what happened to her by taking a road trip with his parents’ car. His best mates go along, hence the adventure begins. One of the characters is saving himself for the prom – so it would be “special,” but clearly couldn’t wait for that SPECIAL event, and instead ends up having his first sexual encounter in the bushes along the side of the road, which was of course celebrated by all his friends.

These kids were “good” kids and their purpose was valiant, their friendship real and genuine. There was respect for his parents and family, value for school and learning. The story wasn’t a fairytale ending and there was very little swearing or violence, so for a “teen” movie it was a good one, but I still wondered as I left the theatre …what has become normal, that wouldn’t have been considered normal when I was 15 or my mum was 15?”  As a result, what have we become desensitized to? 

Normalization refers to social processes through which ideas and actions come to be seen as "normal" and become taken-for-granted or 'natural' in everyday life.

“As far as desensitization is concerned, the medium is the message of normalcy.”

What I do know is that TV, Movies and the media are a STRONG medium of the message that portrays what is so called “normal”. When I “googled” the best teen movies that were out like “Paper Towns” when I was 15, I had never seen any of them them. I wouldn’t have been allowed to be exposed to them, let alone be able to go to the movies with all my friends unsupervised. And if I did I would NEVER have run around the theatre and talked the whole time. (Yeah, I know I was a good girl, but even my daughter was disgusted last night with their behavior).

When I was a “teen”- The troubled, rebellious girl was not the cool one at school, “cheating” meant your boyfriend more than likely “made out” with someone else, not had sex with them. When someone said they were “saving themselves so it would be special” – it meant saving themselves for marriage, not the prom. When you “hooked” up with someone, it usually meant kissed them, not slept with them. I could go on...

I know I may have not been the “normal” teenager in my day for when I looked at the movies (medium) that were out when I was 15, they clearly addressed similar issues, just a little more subtly.  But it is interesting to go back then to the era of when my mother was a “teen”, the movies that were big at that time were “Gidget goes to Rome”, “Beach party” and “Hairspray.” Young people were exploring the teenage years but in a very different way, which was considered “normal” then.

How quickly things change. Only 40 years and “normal” has changed in nearly every facet of life, family, marriage, parenting, how and who we spend our time with, education, sexuality, the workplace, mobility, what we consume, what we believe and what is truth. It is not a very long time for so much to have changed, for a NEW normal to be now taken for granted. Stephen Covey in his Book “The 7 habits of Highly Effective Families” says that the top disciplinary problems at school 40 years ago were gum, noise, dress code, littering, running in halls as compared with today they are drugs, alcohol, pregnancy, suicide, abusive language, robbery and assault as a small example of some of the changes.

There are so many other such sources that show that over the past 40 years change has increased exponentially. Here in Australia, we follow American trends so much, it’s reasonable to assume our figures would be similar.

The “frog in the Kettle” illustration tells us that if you drop a frog in a kettle of boiling water it will jump out immediately in reaction to the pain. On the other hand, if you put the frog in water that is room temperature, slowly heating it, the frog will remain in the kettle and eventually cook to death. Like the “frog in the Kettle” syndrome, sometimes if we don’t stop and think about where we are and what we think is normal, we may end up with “fried brains” from the heat as it creeps up on us.

I find that nowadays it is harder to have conversations about my concerns for these changes in society with my kids and peers, as we live in a culture that says ...

“anybody who doesn’t agree with you—we have a derogatory name to call you” (T.J Jakes)

I really believe that we have been de-sensitized so much that to “have a different opinion is to be judgmental and unloving” which makes it very hard for any discussion to happen at all.  So, how long to do we sit as a “frog in the kettle,” hoping it will all work out, until we look up and find ourselves and our children in a society that we no longer have a voice in, let alone God’s voice as TRUTH?

That night, I must say, I endured the youth running around and talking through the whole movie. I blocked it out and decided to not let it affect me. I didn’t want to be one of those “judgemental, killjoys.” I decided to talk to someone about it as I left the movie theatre, to complain about it after the fact. The steward apologized and said if I had come to her during the movie she would have done something about it, but it was too late now. She was right. It was too late. But for me there are more important issues than whether young people sit quietly and respectfully in a movie theatre.

It is not too late to do something about the NEW normal which the secular world and many other parties with strong agendas would like to see in Australia today.

I quote from a paper written by a group of the community that has a strong desire to make their message the NEW normal. Their strategy is to

“Talk about it as loudly and as often as possible. The principle behind this advice is simple: almost any behavior begins to look normal if you are exposed to enough of it at close quarters and among your acquaintances.”

I am not talking about necessarily talking loudly or as often as possible, but within the close quarters of relationships and in love what are we talking about?  God is calling us to be HIS VOICE, to share HIS TRUTH, to not sit like a “frog in the kettle” or a “passive watcher in a movie theatre” and let others dictate the NEW normal for the way we choose to live our lives. Rather, we need to hold onto the truths we hold dear to our heart because we believe God has a plan and knows THE TRUTH and the best way for us to live. We need this for ourselves, but mostly for our children, who are growing up being exposed to, and being fooled into taking for granted, a NEW normal ... for family, gender, friendships, dating, marriage, being a loving respectful citizen and whatever you want to add to the list.

The challenge I have for myself is ... What does jumping out of the kettle look like for me in my family, my faith community and the world around me?