As would be expected, when the national convention of American Mothers Inc., was held in Salt Lake City this week, the emphasis was on families and family values in the rearing of children. There was nothing new or startling, just some plain old common sense that is too often missing in today's world.
The four-day collection of seminars and meetings featured the selection of Corinne "Lindy" Boggs, former Louisiana congresswoman, as American Mother of 1994. A nine-term member of the House of Representatives, she is the widow of the late Rep. Hale Boggs.As a former political personality, her focus was on motherhood's historical role in preserving America's independence and the need for mother-friendly legislation and awareness in the nation's capital.
Most of the comments offered at the sessions involved a recognition that the family is the place where values must be explained and learned, as much by example as by teaching. That includes parents who are living lessons in such virtues as honesty, reading and prayer.
As President Gordon B. Hinckley, first counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, pointed out in a speech to the delegates, values don't just happen. They must be taught in the home, starting while children are very young. Rearing children requires unstinting work and effort.
The entertainment industry - particularly television - took some sharp and deserved criticism in the convention, partly because it has such easy access into nearly all of the nation's homes and can be such a negative influence.
President Hinckley described television as the greatest tool ever discovered to reach and educate people in large numbers, but it also spews "filth, rot, violence and profanity" into the home.
That can be changed, as one speaker noted, not so much by petitions, protests and boycotts as by public support of wholesome enter-tain-ment - the kind of entertainment that provides a positive influence and good, clean role models.
In the meantime, the TV "off" switch should be used more frequently. Parents and children ought to discover the delights of good books and the mental and emotional growth that comes from reading. Reading with youngsters can be a major step in one generation helping to strengthen and instill values in another.