The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 63, No. 33, Ed. 1 Sunday, December 9, 1984 Page: 86 of 119
one hundred nineteen pages : ill. ; page 18 x 12 in. Digitized from 35 mm. microfilm.View a full description of this newspaper.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
within 14 days
chase prfce (except shipping & handling).
OLO VILLAGE SHOP. Hanover, PA 17333
receive a full refund Of pur
—
- card orders are processed upon credit approval. Delays ■
- notified promptly. Shipment guaranteed within 60 days. |
— © H.H.I., Inc., 1985 _ —
T
i
i
trends affecting the family, but my view
is not so pessimistic. This holiday season
— a time when many of us reflect on
our lives and our loved ones — I look
at my own past and present, at history
and at the world today, and see that the
family is remarkably adept at adapting
to change and surviving.
This is a good thing, because social
change is a constant Since 1940, as
women entered business and industry,
we have watched the trickle of working
wives and mothers grow into a flood,
swelling from 17 percent to 58 percent
just four generations. Experts predict
that by 1990 as many as three out of
every four mothers will be out of the
home and away from their children dur-
ing most of the day. “Latchkey kids” will
be the norm.
Economic pressures, exacerbated by
inflation, have driven many married
women to leave their preschool children
in the hands of harried relatives, bored
baby sitters, often irresponsible neigh-
bors or friends, and, in more recent
times, to the preschools and day-cafe
centers, good and bad, that have sprung
up across the nation. At the precise
moment when children most need con-
sistent, reliable, loving care and role
models, they are subjected to changing
and occasionally dangerous supervision.
Many mothers, of course, will com-
pensate for this new style of life by giv-
ing "prime time" attention to their
families, planning those precious away-
from-work hours to be meaningful and
loving. But the TV is there, waiting to
be a fascinating baby sitter while Mother
and Dad watch, play cards, or entertain.
Few can resist television’s seductive
charm. You may have heard the statis-
tics: 15,000 hours of TV for the average
American child by the time he’s 17,
more time than he has spent in school
or with his parents; an average of six
hours a day watching unrealistic, car-
toon-style life with no interaction, no im-
aginative interplay, no responsibility,
and very little quality.
What kind of preparation is this for
real life? What sort of moral or ethical
standards are learned from sitcoms and
cop shows and, for that matter, most
news broadcasts, with their emphasis on
violence, sex and crime? What can we
expect from a teenager when he has to
face the jarring realities of life and learn
that-alcohol, pot and pills will be even
better than TV in blurring the sharp
edges of disappointment and defeats?
Let’s take a moment to glance at a few
revealing figures. Between 1960 and
1980, while the death rate for all Amer-
icans dropped by 19 percent, the death
rate for 15- to 24-year-olds rose by the
same amount, largely due to an increase
in adolescent suicide. The suicide and
murder rates for white male teenagers
are the highest in American history.
Suicide is now the number hjvo cause
of death among 16- to 19-year-olds.
The number of adolescent problem
Some people are alarmed by recent drinkers doubled in the years between
1960 and 1980 to 20 percent of the teen-
age population The number of high
school seniors who smoke marijuana
every day went from 6 percent to 11 per-
cent between .1975 and 1978.
•Some experts ternrrour situation today
a “youth crisis.” My attitude is much
more hopeful. I believe the American
family will ride out its current crises and
remain intact, a feeling rooted in my
own past, beginning with my childhood
in the Great Depression.
The circumstances in Iwhich I was
raised were not easy, but my family tried
to make the best of it. My parents, who
adopted me, were in their 50s, and my
father was crippled. But there was also
a great deal of love and a great deal of
religion and a great deal of caring. I was
a wanted and loved child, which 1 think
is very important. We were poor, but as
the saying goes, I didn’t know it,
because everybody we knew was poor.
When I discovered at age 11 or 12 that
I was adopted, 1 went through the “lost
THE SUCCESSFUL HOME
IS A SCHOOL FOR LOVE”
u
Years ago Art Linkletter tragically lost a
daughter. Then later, a son. But nothing will
undermine his faith in the American family.
in
By Art linkletter
u\
/ decided to
memorialize my
daughter’s life by
changing mine. / gave
up my career to crusade
against drug abuse.
nr.
j.
prince” syndrome, which is, 1 think,
rather common. 1 thought, well, come
on, I’m adopted. That means that my
real parents are rich and famous. They
gave me to these good, kind people to
teach me about life, but someday a Rolls
Royce will drive up and take me back
to my estate. After 1 had passed that
phase, I resolved to create a family of
my own. 1 wanted a lot of children. I
wanted to establish what 1 didn’t have,
to be the start of a family tree that was
mine. And it was always in my mind
that 1 would have a big, close, and lov-
g family, and 1 did.
We remained very close and loving.
When 1 lost Diane, and later my son
Robert, who died three years ago in a
car accident, my family was a source of
great strength. We discussed, as a group,
whether or not I should speak and write
about drugs and expose our family to
the kind of publicity that is painful and
reminds you of what happened. Your
first instinct when you have a family
tragedy is to be private and say as little
as possible. But we decided that we
would make Diane’s life mean some-
thing by my public activities. We stood
up to it as a family. It brought us to-
gether, and we were more loving, more
caring, than ever. We were made con-
scious of how frail and temporary every-
thing is, and we expressed it to each
other. Today when we speak on the
phone we always say, “I love you. Are
you well?” That’s what tragedy does if
(continued on page 10)
&
t
CL
y interest in the American
family grew out of a per-
sonal tragedy that trans-
formed my life. In 1969,
my 19-year-old daughter, Diane, com-
mitted suicide during an LSD flashback.
She was not a drug addict. Diane was
a daring, challenging, chance-taking, ex-
perimenting extrovert. And she was go-
ing around with a lot of people in Holly-
wood who lived a fairly fast life. She was
the daughter of a celebrity, and any
daughter of a celebrity always feels a
very strong pressure to be like everyone
else. 1 know from talking to her brother
Robert, who was with her some of the
time, that she wanted to be part of the
gang. If-she was at a party on a weekend,
and something was going on, she was life
one of those kids who would try it, so
she had LSD at a party. She was also one
of those people prone to having flash-
backs. Her brother told me later that she
had said to him, “I don’t know what’s
the matter with my mind. 1 think I’m go-
ing crazy.”
Under the influence of one of these
flashbacks, she took her own life. She
was cooking dinner for her boyfriend in through in the past half century
her L.A. apartment. They were having
Art Linkletter at home with his five children
in 1959. Diane is sitting in his lap.
fun, playing, music; it was going to be
a pleasant evening. There was no argu-
ment, no problem. He went out to see
what she was doing in the kitchen, and
she had gone out the ninth floor window.
After she died, I spent many painful
hours reviewing everything. ^,t’s natural
for parents to blame themselves. You
think of things you could have done dif-
ferently. But 1 couldn’t go with her to
parties. 1 couldn’t hold her hand. She
had -a very good relationship with us; all
of our kids did. You can’t take a child
and wrap her in cotton batting and put
her in a drawer and keep her away from
in
What I could do, and decided to do,
was to memorialize her life by chang-
ing mine. I gave up a 40-year career in
broadcasting in order to become an
author, lecturer and filmmaker crusad-
ing against drug abuse. Inevitably this
quest led me to look closely at the Amer-
ican family — my own included — and
the dramatic changes it has gone
4 Family Weekly • December a • irm
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Brown, Leon. The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 63, No. 33, Ed. 1 Sunday, December 9, 1984, newspaper, December 9, 1984; Baytown, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1153277/m1/86/: accessed June 21, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Sterling Municipal Library.