22 July 2012

Thank You Linda Wertheimer!

We have two teen boys.  Well, one teen and one almost teen.  Teen culture is rampant around here, complete with flat brimmed baseball hats (ick), bad music, and hip lingo du jour.

Most of the time, I feel like I'm doing battle against pop culture, trying to show my kids the bigger picture, coaxing them away from questionable influences, keeping them aware of other ways of being in the world.

This morning, NPR helped me out.  Of course, the stories on NPR are interesting and go a long way towards educating my kids about what's going on in the world.  But I had no idea NPR could also actually change their behavior!

Today, during the Sunday Puzzle with Will Shortz, Linda Wertheimer was describing to one of the listener-players what he would get for playing the puzzle game, and she referred to the prizes as "NPR swag."

And from the backseat of the minivan, one of the boys piped up:

"I'm never using the word swag again ever."

NPR: making teen culture uncool for 41 years.

Thanks Linda!

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1 comment:

Kate Hall said...

HA!! thank god for NPR. now, if we could just get them to banter with the 'yo, whats up? '... all would be even more perfect... :)

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