Every year around this time, moms of young girls and teens go through a relatively new Halloween ritual: Steering our daughters away from the increasingly sexy costume choices in stores, catalogs and online costume Web sites.

This wasn't always the case. My mom's Halloween challenges involved last minute alterations, bad weather and predictable sugar-induced meltdowns. Of course, moms still wrestle with those Halloween fixtures, but the ghoulish holiday now involves negotiations and discussions our moms were mercifully spared.

When I was a kid, costumes fell into scary or sweet categories. Pop culture had a Halloween presence, but for girls in the seventies, it involved a Princess Leia long white dress and iconic braided hair buns. A few years later, Madonna's suggestive lace outfits were vying for girls' attention, but at least traditional costume themes were still in play. Nowadays, witches, pirates and vampire costumes for girls are no longer scary; in fact, most are down-right sleazy. If your pretween daughter is like mine, she's probably oblivious to the sexualized nature of the costumes she's circling in the annual catalogs, which means there's still a good chance you can successfully steer her toward a more appropriate (and inevitably, more expensive) option.

When President Obama told CBS's 60 Minutes recently that our country is suffering from a lack of civility, most Americans understood that he was talking about Rep. Joe Wilson (the congressman who famously shouted "You Lie!" during his speech), politically heated cable news shows, and of course those "angry mobs" that have been showing up for health care town hall meetings and Tea Party rallies across the country.

The press concurred with the President and threw in the timely headlines about Serena William's foul-mouthed outburst on the tennis court and Kanye West's hijacking of Taylor Swift's MTV award acceptance speech.

"There's a coarsening of the culture," the media has collectively and belatedly declared - as if Republican political discontent started a national trend that spread to hip-hop and tennis stars.

News flash! The culture has been coarsening for at least the last decade or two. Sure, popular culture hasn't helped, but rock stars, sports stars, politicians and angry cable pundits are not the source of the deterioration of civility in the culture.

Parents are!

For evidence of the shortage of good old fashioned parenting in this country, look no further than this video of two unprovoked attacks on a teenager just looking for a place to sit on his school bus. Talk about lack of civility. As the boy takes two separate beatings, lifting his hands only to protect his own head from continuous blows, fellow passengers passively watch, cheer on his attackers and only two kids begrudgingly step in to break it up.

The utter lack of compassion displayed by the students as they witness the humiliation and violence that was perpetrated on a fellow classmate is shocking and depressing.

Unfortunately, in this incident, race is being used to deflect from the real conversation our nation should be having about raising kids with character and a conscience. Since the victim was white and the assailants and passengers were African-American, all kinds of allegations are being tossed around. It's being labeled as a hate crime.

For the record, I don't believe in labeling certain crimes as hate crimes. In my view, all crimes are hate crimes, regardless of the motivation or the color or sexual orientation of the victim. When I saw the video, I can honestly tell you that I did not see race.

What I saw was the very sad results of poor parenting.

In both the attackers and the onlookers, I saw parents who failed miserably to instill compassion, a sense of justice and moral courage in their children. Too many parents are failing their kids, shirking their responsibility and making themselves present in their kids' lives only when it comes time to defend their offspring against the school officials, teachers, police officers and judges left to deal with the aftermath – rude, mean, angry kids.

Parents, step up! Stop waiting for celebrity role models, teachers, coaches or after-school programs to do your job. Civility starts at home.

This is the conversation President Obama, the media and the nation should be having.

Baby Jayden had the misfortune of being born two days too early.

Even though he was born at 21 weeks and 5 days into his mother's pregnancy, the preemie had a strong heartbeat and was moving his arms and legs upon delivery. But according to his mother in an interview with the Daily Mail, Jayden's doctors refused to offer him medical attention or access to intensive care because little Jayden was just two days shy of the 22-week cutoff date for treating premature babies established in the British national healthcare guidelines.

Unbelievably, the desperate pleas of Jayden's mother, Sarah Capewell, to help her still-breathing child were ignored. Capewell claims that she told the NHS doctor, "If he's born alive you have to help him." According to the story, Capewell said the doctor, following guidelines for British state hospitals for treating premature babies, responded, "No, we don't."

In England babies born prior to 22 weeks are not even legally recognized as babies and therefore are not issued birth certificates; Capewell had to fight to get both a birth and death certificate for her "fetus."

According to the Daily Mail, Capewell's midwife told her, "They won't come and help, sweetie. Make the best of the time you have with him." Indeed. Baby Jayden survived another two hours before he died in his mother's arms.

When Sarah Capewell entered James Paget Hospital in Norfolk, England she was not expecting to deliver a healthy -- or even live -- baby. She had gone into early labor, but was denied injections to try to stop the labor because she was not yet at 22 weeks of gestation. She was also denied steroid injections to help strengthen her baby's lungs for the same reason.

"When I went into labor I was told he would be born dead, disabled and his skin would most likely be peeling off," she recounts on her Web site, Justice for Jayden. Her doctor's advice was for her to treat the birth as a miscarriage, since her child was likely to be stillborn.

But that's not what happened. According Capewell, "he put out his arms and legs and pushed himself over" upon delivery and despite his doctor's grim prediction, his mother writes that "in actual fact [Jayden] was perfect." According to the Daily Mail, the midwife present at delivery described Jayden as a "little fighter."

Amellia Sonja Taylor was also a "little fighter." The 21-week-old Florida preemie who only weighed 10 ounces at birth defied odds and just celebrated her second birthday despite her doctors' pessimistic prognosis for survival.

So did Heather Pope. Though she was 23 weeks old, she was only 1.5 pounds and was given a mere 10 percent chance of survival. Heather's mother told the BBC that, "The doctors initially told us they would not do anything, but we insisted they at least try, and thankfully they came round." Heather is now a healthy and happy grade-schooler.

Sadly, Jayden Capewell was never given the chance to prove his doctors wrong. He was treated as a number, not a patient. And now the mother is asking why and waging a campaign to change England's national guidelines.

But Capewell is discovering that her noble crusade is tied up in her nation's ugly abortion politics. In England, there is genuine concern that lowering the viability age of a fetus would trigger another national debate over abortion limits as it did in 1990 when scientific evidence of fetus viability outside of the womb was the reason politicians lowered abortion limits from 28 to 24 weeks.

The good news for pro-lifers, like myself, is that if viability remains a benchmark for public acceptance of abortion, science is on our side. If only the battle to change Britain's guidelines didn't come at the expense of Jayden's life.

Thirteen years ago, I survived a head-on collision after the driver of an oncoming vehicle fell asleep at the wheel. The accident was gruesome. My boyfriend and his friend, the driver of our rental car, died in the accident. I was ejected out of the passenger-side window and sustained very serious injuries to my right leg that still affect me today (I have arthritis, a limp and difficulty running).

That's why I was conflicted about viewing the much-debated British public service announcement depicting the very realistic and graphic scene of an accident caused by a group of teenage girls texting while driving. When the CNN newscaster gave a warning to viewers, I almost changed the channel for fear it would provoke flashbacks to my own nightmare.

I watched it; and it did. But if it prevents even one person from texting, talking on the cell or falling asleep at the wheel, it's worth it. PSAs have always relied on shock value -- this one just ups the ante for a generation that's seen it all.

There's a good reason PSAs employ the use of shock and searing images. It's simple. Most PSAs are directed at young people and most young people think they're invincible. I did. My own life is divided into two parts. Before and after my accident. Before my accident, I took a lot more chances, like getting a ride home from someone who had been drinking, or riding on the back of a motorcycle without a helmet.

My own accident was not the fault of anyone in my car. Nonetheless, the tragic aftermath had a life-changing affect. After my accident, I understood mortality, pain, loss and tragedy. These are hard lessons to learn at the tender age of 24. As someone who has been in a head-on crash, I encourage you to show your teen the texting PSA. I know it's hard to watch, but believe me, there are far more painful ways of learning the lesson.

Recent video of a woman from Gaylesville, Georgia dragging her son through a Verizon store has sparked heated online debates about what constitutes appropriate punishment and the challenges of exercising discipline in public.

Melissa Catherine Smith-Means, 37, the mother caught on the store security camera, was arrested for the incident and charged with felony first-degree cruelty to a child. To date, no one is quite sure if she dragged her child because he refused to walk or if she did it with the child's consent as part of a game, as her attorney asserts.

Regardless, parents coast to coast are sounding off on the issue because no matter what side you come out on, the side of the mom, the child, the appalled store employees, or the arresting officer, parents universally relate to the age-old public discipline dilemma. We've all been there, surrounded by strangers, face to face with a naughty, stubborn child and the choice to either give in to his/her demands, or follow through with our disciplinary threat, despite the disapproving stares of onlookers.

Melissa Smith-Means has not publicly clarified the context of the video, presumably because the charges are still pending. I, for one, will reserve judgment until I hear from her directly – for a lot of reasons.

One, as a former reality-TV show participant, I know first-hand that video can be deceptive when taken out of context. Second, as an at-home mom who is on the front lines of discipline with my five kids all day long, I know that a ten-second video clip of my worst mommy moment is not an accurate portrait of who I am as a parent or the kind of loving home I work so hard to build for my children.

To be honest, I've been burned before for not taking the time to walk in another mother's shoes before judging her choice of disciplinary tactics. Readers might recall a column I once wrote about, Bertreice Dixon, a mom who punished her 12 year-old son for bullying and stealing a fellow classmate's iPod. Dixon forced her son, Montavious Lewis, to stand on a busy corner, wearing a hat with the letter "D" for "dumb" and a sandwich board stating what he had done to his classmate. He also carried a bell he was expected to ring so he could attract the attention of cars and pedestrians at the busy intersection where his mother made him stand. And attract attention he did, including a local news camera crew who captured him shuffling back and forth and looking both bored and understandably embarrassed. They even interviewed Montavious, who seemed to me to be holding back tears. I couldn't help but feel for the kid.

In my column, I acknowledged Bertreice's intentions as good, and even loving, but I rejected her choice of discipline, which I called "humiliating" and probably "unproductive". I received more than 700 comments on that column, and virtually all of them disagreed with me and more importantly, challenged me to consider the unique set of problems Bertreice faced raising her son in a gang-prone environment. After reading all the comments, I came to the conclusion that despite my sympathy for Montavious, Bertreice was, indeed, a far better judge than I of what her son would respond to and more importantly, of the dangers she was trying to protect him from. Lesson learned!

Talk to any grandparent these days and they'll tell you that today's kids lack discipline. Talk to anybody older than 35 and they'll tell you that their parents might very well have been reported for "child abuse" by today's time-out, talk-it-out approach to parenting.

It's a good thing that our culture has a greater awareness of child abuse and encourages adults to respect the dignity of children. But is our culture sending parents mixed messages? On the one hand, we decry a near epidemic lack of discipline in children that has eroded manners and self-control once taken for granted in kids a mere generation ago. From grandparents, teachers and even President Obama, there's a cry for parents to take more responsibility for their kids' behavior. On the other hand, when parents do, or rather, when we see them doing it, we are quick to judge.

Child abuse is flat out wrong, but where's the line between abuse and non-traditional forms of punishment that an individual parent deems effective?

For those interested in talking about this topic on TV, Dr. Phil is looking for you. Click here to leave him a comment. I will be appearing on an upcoming Dr. Phil episode to discuss this very controversial issue.

Rachel Campos-Duffy is the author of Stay Home, Stay Happy: 10 Secrets to Loving At-Home Motherhood.

Is tweeting during labor the ultimate in mommy multi-tasking?

Sara Williams, wife of Twitter CEO, Evan Williams, tweeted updates for her followers while in labor all the way up to finally getting her epidural shot. Dad took over to tweet the birth. OK, maybe Sara had a small publicity motive, but she's not the only mom out there tweeting through contractions. CNN did a story on the trend and one mom described demanding her blackberry between contractions. She explained her need to put her pain "out there" in the universe, so other people could feel it along with her.

In the same CNN story, a New York dad, Kyle Monson, said,"We were on our iPhone and Blackberry right up until the point when my wife started pushing, and then we had to put those phones down."

I can see why moms with parents and friends who live far away say that these up-to-the-minute tweets help to shrink the miles between them, but I also understand why others say it's too much 411. Especially since most people tweet to a list of followers that includes casual acquaintances and even strangers.

Psychologist Renana Brooks told CNN that she's concerned with the trend and the idea of couples texting rather than being focused on each other.

"One of the few rituals we have in terms of giving each other undivided attention, is that time in a delivery room," she said. "To be spending time writing to someone else destroys the whole ritual."

I agree and that's why you would never catch me tweeting during labor. I can barely force myself to be nice to the people around me (including my husband) in the birthing room, let alone think of something uncensored to tweet to my friends and family in cyberworld.

I can, however, very easily imagine my husband tweeting during my labor. After all, I've seen him chat up the doctor about real estate while I was in the middle of a painful contraction, and even take unflattering pictures of me pushing, which I later discovered he later posted along with a picture of our new daughter on our family website, much to my absolute horror.

My husband has enough trouble dealing with a crabby wife in pain who doesn't seem to think he can do anything right in the labor room. Tweeting would just one more thing to annoy me.

Are you with me on this?

Bebé Gloten, a new breastfeeding doll from a Spanish toy company, is stirring up a lot of controversy. Parents and experts are wondering whether the benefits of playing "breastfeeding mommy" outweigh the age-appropriateness of a doll that requires girls to wear a vest with plastic flowers that lay over their nipples and creates a sucking sound when the doll is next to the area. If you're curious, view this brief YouTube demonstration provided by the manufacturer.

FOX News managing health editor Dr. Manny Alvarez is not a fan. He believes Bebé Gloten may unnaturally speed up maternal desires in young girls.

"It's like introducing sex education in first grade instead of seventh or eighth grade," said Dr. Alvarez. "Or, it could inadvertently lead little girls to become traumatized. You never know the effects this could have until she's older."

Dr. Alvarez's analysis is downright silly, especially from a medical authority. One wonders just how much time the doctor spends with young children. As a breast-feeding mom of five, I can tell you that all of my kids, including my boys, have used dolls to imitate me while I breastfed. It's ridiculous to think that this kind of play could "inadvertently" traumatize them or lead to early sexual activity.

It strikes me that desexualizing breastfeeding is precisely the goal of Bebé Gloten and that the more casual and public we are about the need for babies to nurse, the more quickly our society will adopt a normal attitude toward a very normal human function.

While I think Bebé Gloten is harmless, I sympathize with those moms who say that the vest contraption is a little creepy. Both toy companies and parents are guilty of interfering in the magical, imaginative world of children and far too many toys these days are focused on instructing and entertaining, rather than sparking the creativity children naturally possess. Little girls don't really need battery-operated sucking sounds to learn the virtues of breastfeeding (witness this YouTube clip of a toddler nursing an old-fashion babydoll).They just need to see moms, aunts and grown-up friends who breastfeed.Their God-given imaginations will do the rest.

The Youtube phenomenon known as "JK (Jill and Kevin) Wedding Entrance Dance," a home video of a wedding party, bride and groom, dancing down the aisle to the catchy Chris Brown song "Forever," has spawned more than ten million hits and 50,0000 comments. This weekend, the entire group was also invited to reenact the dance on NBC's "Today" show, to the hoots and cheers of its live Rockefeller Plaza audience.

So, why all the fuss? What's so special about a group of St. Paul, Minn. friends getting together to plan and surprise wedding guests with a funky dance down the aisle?

It's simple: The unadulterated joy and fun they had is both undeniable and contagious. My husband and I watched it together for the first time with our nine-year-old while we were all lying in bed and I was catching up on e-mail on my laptop. Someone had forwarded the link and I casually asked Sean and my daughter if they wanted to see it.

From the moment the music came on and the first dancer began to bust a move, we could not stop smiling. The wedding party was having so much fun! These friends were really putting it out there, celebrating this day and taking a risk for the sake of fun and, yes, love.

Truth be told, not all the dancers had perfect rhythm, but it didn't matter. It wasn't about the quality of the dancing. The novel idea of foregoing the traditionally solemn march down the aisle for a choreographed surprise wedding entrance dance could have easily fallen flat with wedding guests or not translated well to video or simply not inspired the viral forwarding. But it did, because you just can't fake that kind of joy. The finale -- the beaming, dancing bride -- really brought it all home for me.

While there have been discussions about the appropriateness of the aisle hop in a house of worship, by and large, most people have chosen to put theological and decorum issues aside to focus on the fun, and authentically happy spirit in which it was executed. Put simply what so many are responding to in this cheesy, grainy, wedding-video-gone-viral is the beauty of friendship and love. It makes us believe that there really is a happily ever after.

Julie Zeilinger is a self-described "angry" feminist, which is why she started her own website community for like-minded feminists who "have enough social awareness to be angry and who want to verbalize that anger." The thing is, Julie is not a Women's Study sophomore at Wesleyan; she's teenager from Pepper Pike, Ohio, and her "teen" website, thefbomb.org, is a place where other girls who regularly use terms like objectification, gender identity roles, privileged white girl and homophobia can vent.

In a recent post about Britney Spears' new sexy CD cover, Fbomb contributor Robin S. confesses:

"Despite my passion for music, I doubt I could ever succeed in the music business. My reasons for this are very simple: I am overweight, I don't wear makeup and I don't keep up with current trends, and I wouldn't change these things if I was told that I needed to in order to be marketable."

Good for you, Robin! I'm all for girl power, especially if it means unmasking the fake "sexy" empowerment message so many teenage girls are getting from popular culture.

Bravo's hit reality show, "The Real Housewives of New Jersey," is the most deliciously guilty mom pleasure since cookie dough ice cream hit grocery store freezers. Ironically, its teen counterpart, "NYC Prep," is drawing criticism from the same moms (like me!) who sneak "Real Housewives" episodes when their kids aren't around.

Why? Because moms know that when it comes to media intake, adults and teens are different. Teens are impressionable and there is a moral hazard in Bravo's not-so teenage look at the lives of privileged New York City private-school kids: The normalization of very bad teen behavior and the insidious cultural pressure on kids to grow up too fast.

Unlike the glamorous TV rich kids of my generation, these kids don't hang out at the Peach Pit after school. They have completely bypassed the pep rallies, pizza and slumber parties for the very adult world of New York City nightclubs, fine dining, shopping sprees and art gallery openings. The lack of parental involvement in their day-to-day lives is glaring, if not disturbing. One baby-faced 15-year-old actually lives alone in an apartment with her teenage brother, while their parents, who live in the Hamptons, drop in for weekend visits. Left to her own devices, she admits to never doing homework and staying out till the wee hours at nightclubs on school nights.

But even those teens who live at home seem to be pursuing a status-conscious New York social scene alone, without the guidance of an adult who could keep them in check. They spend their days and nights texting, scheming, and making clumsy attempts at adult banter that are painful to watch. Despite their cruel superficiality, I can't help feeling sorry for their lost childhoods.

I was 22 when I appeared on MTV's "The Real World." I found that cast members with the strongest family ties fared best. The teens of "NYC Prep" appear to be in over their heads; they have neither the maturity nor the values to survive the experience with their souls intact. It's really not their fault. Witness how they try on clichés and stereotypes borrowed from both the absent adults in their lives and the conniving characters of "Gossip Girl," the hit CW series that inspired "NYC Prep," and that they seem determined to imitate. One teen boasts, without irony, that prep-school kids are "the elite of the elite," while another girl admits that she is excited about a new friendship because it will, "enhance my social status".

Sadly, without the benefit of caring, sensible grown-ups who can set limits and put the privileged world they inhabit in perspective, these teens are being robbed of more than their childhood; they are losing the opportunity and space to develop their character.

In the end, we learn that parenting matters. And that when rich kids grow up too soon, they get all the dysfunction and none of the graces their social status could have imbued.

Last night, as my husband, Sean, lay sleeping and I was brushing my teeth, I suddenly heard strange and terrifying noises outside my second-story bathroom window. Animal screams, I thought. Then, sounds of branches breaking and cracking underfoot. Whatever was moving around was BIG. Then I heard the sound of crying, like a child. At that point, I was totally freaked out and ran to the bedroom to awaken Sean to tell me what was out there.

After listening to the ruckus out back for a few seconds, he declared that it was a bear carrying away a baby fawn. The poor little fawns are known to cry in fear and pain. Then, with a yawn, he crawled back in bed. This was one of those moments in my marriage when I was very aware of just how different our rural vs. urban childhoods were.

Distraught by the thought of the scared little fawn, and still freaked out by the screeches continuing outside our rural Wisconsin home, I called my mom, who stayed on the line with me as I continued to listen from the bathroom window. Then, suddenly, from below my window I heard a deep, low, scary growl.

The next day, I declared an "inside day" of reading and board games for the kids, despite the beautiful weather. In the afternoon, my husband came home for lunch to tell me that he had just talked to a warden from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). The warden confirmed what we thought had happened the night before. Indeed, bears prey on baby fawns at this time of year. He also warned us to train our kids on what to do should they encounter a bear.

I want to share his advice with other parents. According to the warden, it's important that the kids not scream (yeah, I know that's a tough one to teach, but that's what he said). Always keep your eye on the bear and do not turn around or give him your back. Walk backwards slowly to a safe place. Talk in a low voice to let the bear know you are human and raise your arms in a non-threatening way above your head to make yourself appear bigger.

I recognize that not everyone lives in bear country, but a lot of urban families will be camping outdoors this summer. Chances are that you will not encounter a bear, but it's always good to know what to do, just in case!
Here's a link to some more bear facts for kids.

Tell me, have you ever encountered a bear? If so, what did you do?

Over the weekend, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford confessed, in a rambling live statement to the press, that he has been having an affair with a woman in Argentina. Since her husband's bizarre press conference, the Governor's wife, Jenny, has single handedly changed the rulebook for scorned political wives. Gone is the humiliating moment of standing next to the philandering husband in a show of support, the stoned-face silence, the prerequisite week-long sequester in the family home, and the pathological enabling. Instead, Jenny Sanford is exemplifying dignity in the face of disaster, and is putting her children ahead of her husband's ambitions.

Mrs. Sanford's behavior -- including her refusal to cover for her husband when the press first came to their Sullivans Island summer house inquiring about the governor's whereabouts, and her absence as he has faced the press and calls for his resignation alone -- Mrs. Sanford has inspired a strong response from women across the country. "Team Jenny" merchandise, including mugs, bags and t-shirts with tango dancing silhouettes and the tagline, "Don't cry for me Argentina," is popping up everywhere. Clearly, Mrs. Sanford's behavior is meeting with approval from at least some voters -- and mothers.

Shortly after her husband's rambling, narcissistic press conference, the preppy mother of four boys delivered her own perfectly crafted and heartbreakingly maternal statement (no secret now about who the brain was in that outfit!). In it, she uses sacred scripture to remind her cheating husband of his ingratitude, saying, "sons are a gift from the Lord and children a reward from Him." She goes on to say, "I believe that the greatest legacy I will leave behind in this world is...the character of [my] children".

Jenny Sanford is a woman who understands exactly what is at stake, and who is not willing to risk "the potential damage to [her] children." When these things happen to families, especially very public families, we all worry about the children. In this case, however, we all somehow know that those boys are going to turn out all right – thanks to Team Jenny.

Should the government pay those on welfare to stay home and care for their kids?

That's the question Los Angeles officials are asking as the number of unemployed rises and California deals with a budget crises that threatens to land the state in bankruptcy. Governor Schwarzenegger wants to eliminate Cal Works, the state's welfare to work program. LA County Supervisors prefer to make deep cuts and save the program. Their goal: Target the most expensive people.

Currently, California "Welfare to Work" recipients are required to find a job or participate in government funded training or school. While fulfilling the program requirements, the government also covers childcare costs of about $500 per child per month.

The only exception to the work and training requirement are welfare recipients with a child under the age of one. One of the easiest ways to save money is to expand the exemption to include those with a baby under two years of age and those with two or more children under age six. In other words, pay more people to stay home with their kids.

Seems like a good idea -- but how do other parents feel?

Last week, my three oldest kids and I had a date night. We went to a 50s style diner, had hamburgers, fries and milkshakes, and headed to the 7:30 PM show. Not having read any reviews prior, I purchased tickets for Pixar's "Up" fully expecting that I was in for predictable kid's movie fare – you know, sassy animal sidekicks, inside adult jokes that (we hope) go over the kids' heads, and, of course, the prerequisite potty humor.

What I got was a more than a pleasant surprise. "Up" is a rare find. A diamond in a pile of cultural rubbish served up to kids these days. Stripped of much of the cynicism and reliance on bodily functions of so many modern animated films, "Up" is written to respect kids' intelligence and sense of humor. Just as important, it is a first-rate commercial movie that isn't afraid to be wholesome - evidence that films for kids can be highly entertaining and simultaneously reinforce virtues such as love, kindness, empathy, and courage.

Supreme court nominee Sonia Sotomayor says Nancy Drew was her girlhood hero. So do Sandra Day O'Connor, Hillary Clinton, and Laura Bush. I also grew up reading Nancy Drew and can easily say that I was profoundly influenced by the brainy, courageous and beautiful "titian haired" detective. I'm also fairly certain that the purchase of my first car, a used black convertible Volkswagen Cabriolet, was inspired by images of Nancy in her convertible driving around Riverside solving mysteries with her loyal friends, George and Bess.

So who are today's girlhood role models and influences? Miley Cyrus, Lindsay Lohan, Vanessa Hudgens, the cast of MTV's The Hills? What about Bratz Dolls or even Disney's G-rated, but nonetheless vapid Cheetah Girls? What are the chances that these role models will spawn our next Supreme Court justice, Pulitzer winning journalist, or concerned citizen, the way Nancy and her friends did?

The dearth of smart and positive role models is a sad reality for today's girls and teens and a source of frustration for their moms. And there seems to be no reprieve. Just when moms were rejoicing over the end of MTV's shockingly crass "My Super Sweet 16," Bravo rolls out a disturbing new teen reality show this summer called "NYC Prep" that glorifies superficiality, rampant consumerism, and deplorable teen behavior (think "The Real Housewives" franchise for teens). Sadly, too many kids are unsupervised because their parents don't care or are unaware or resigned to what Hollywood dishes out. And it's not just teens. Children as young as 6 and 7 are left to make sense of these images on their own. This is bad news for all of us – even for those of us who do monitor our children's media consumption.

Now that I am a mom who reads Nancy Drew to my own kids, I am more keenly aware of the enduring virtues of the brave detective in this All-American and beloved series. They go beyond her commitment to truth and justice. Nancy and her friends made being square (as in having integrity and being polite, thoughtful and kind) seem cool. What girl doesn't want to be Nancy? Her values are not quaint or outmoded. They are timeless ideals that that we should pass on to our daughters (and sons).

If you haven't done so already, uncover your old collection and lovingly pass it on to your daughter, granddaughter or niece, whatever her age. Bravo is competing for her attention this summer. She deserves better.