My how times have changed.
Remember when mothers told their little boys to eat their breakfast so they could do well in school and grow up to be President some day? Well, okay, I don't exactly remember that either (exept for re-runs on Nick-at-Nite), but a recent survey found that more boys between 5th and 8th grade would rather be famous than intelligent. In girls the margin was even greater. The survey also showed that girls would rather be a celebrity assistant than the president of a university or major corporation.
We have a culture obsessed with fame.
But consider this: in the 1950s, the proverb was "Children should be seen, not heard." Today, you can walk into almost any house in America (including Christian homes) and what do you find? Toys covering the floor, and mom and dad rushing the kids into the minivan to drop them off at Little League and soccer practice every weekend. Now the children live like celebrities and the parents are their celebrity assistants.
They go off to school to find out that they are all "very important people." They are all special. It doesn't matter if they still wet their pants or pick their noses. Its all about the self esteem.
Then they end up on prime time television, singing their hearts out only to find out they never could carry a tune, and have never actually hit a note on key. Or worse, they're one or two cupcakes over the limit tolerable appearance.
As cruel as he can sometimes be, I think perhaps Simon Cowell deserves an award for being one of the last honest men in a generation of mollycoddlers.