Susanna Says
"The Transvestite and
his Children."
You know, as soon as I wrote the above title I felt something like chills running up and down my spine. The same feeling a leaf of grass would ex- perience upon seeing a herd of elephants galloping in its direction. From this statement one might get the impression that I am prejudiced against the little monsters and the truth is that I am pre- judiced. Therefore it is only logical that I should write about the subject.
It is extremely fashionable these days to base on prejudice any supposedly impartial and objective analysis of a problem. I say problem because child- ren are a problem...THE problem. They are more of a problem than anything else a TV has to deal with. Even a wife can be more or less convinced of the need we feel to dress, although this may take years of effort. A mother or a father can be equally sold on TVism if one is smart enough to argue well. Friends and other relatives may be difficult too, but not an impossibility. But kids? They are stronger than the Berlin wall when it comes to find- ing freedom to dress at home. Of course it is us- ually the mother who sets up the barbed wire fences. "Don't you dare let Johnny see you in THAT (ugh!) attire!" Her voice becomes almost biblical, no ancient prophet spat stronger admonitions at a fellow human than the prim, puritanic wife who sees in her husband's transvestism the worst disgrace that could ever befall her little offspring.
But, if we stop for a moment to look around and assume that most homes are not tainted with a TV husband, what kind of offspring do we find as an average? The ones "untainted"? If you read the