Time for Adults to Look in the Mirror : Role models: Children need to see achievements they can realistically aspire to, not just athletes and entertainers.

Ever since I left the U.S. Navy to travel the country as a motivational speaker and now, as a television talk show host, I have become convinced that the children of this nation represent the answers to our troubled times of drugs and family despair and violence. Before any solution can be found, we as adults and parents must face the sobering fact that we are letting our children down.

We ask young people to do the right thing, to act properly, but we don’t do the right thing and we don’t act properly. If we are to see our children grow into responsive members of society, “Do as I say, not as I do” simply will not do. We need to develop the strength of principle to guide by example.

Take a hard look in the mirror, because our kids are nothing but reflections of who we are. Children take their cues from us. Teen pregnancy has risen in direct correlation to the escalating divorce rate in America; 60% of marriages end in divorce, and too many youngsters see their parents with multiple sex partners. We can’t be surprised when teens are promiscuous or teen pregnancies skyrocket.

We place substantial blame on young people for our nation’s consuming drug crisis, but it isn’t kids who are flying in narcotics or laundering money. Drugs are an adult-originated problem, with tragic effects on our youth. Too often, television programs teach our kids that violence is the way adults settle a problem. Truth is, we should be relieved that kids do only a fraction of what we do a whole lot of.

The good news is that the solutions do exist to right our children’s way. After providing education--an inalienable right of every child on Earth--it is our duty to demonstrate who the real role models are in society. Too many youngsters today mistake American sports heroes and entertainers for role models. Role models are individuals children can emulate, to whose achievements they can realistically aspire. Role models are hard-working men and women who can explain how they got from A to Z in their lives. Heroes are great; we need heroes, but they can’t always explain their innate and rare talents, so we need role models even more.

Michael Jordan is a gifted basketball superstar and a hero, but he isn’t a role model. Mickey Mantle is still a hero to at least two generations of baseball fans, but he is not a role model. Michael Jackson, brilliant performer that he is, is not a role model, either. These are three supremely talented individuals we revere, but we can’t completely relate to them. None of us can “be like Mike,” as the Nike commercial advises, and too often our kids feel a sense of failure when that reality hits home. Michael Jordan flies on the wings of almost superhuman talent, but how many kids can realistically expect to fill his shoes?

In our schools, in newspapers, on television and most especially in our homes we must work much harder to convey the message that being an “average American” isn’t just an average accomplishment. It’s an exceptional one.

Down every street and around every corner, there are role models in “ordinary” citizens who hold jobs, pay their bills and contribute to the honest progress of our country. The attorney next door is a role model because he can explain what it took to become who he is. The bank teller and postman on the job for 45 years are role models who do their part by putting food on the table and clothes on the backs of their children. We as parents and educators, media makers and policy creators, must dispel this million-dollar notion that unless you have a lot of money, you are a nobody. Let us identify role models and celebrate them. Let us all be role models, no matter what our profession is.

In this time of great political promise, we as individuals must heed the call for a change in our attitudes toward our youth.

We must govern ourselves according to the fundamental principle that we are our children and our children are us. We must act as we would want them to. They have to understand the triumph in being an “average” member of our society.

Only then will we realize that it is the average American who makes this country great, and not the few heroes. And only then will America’s children be able to lead us toward tomorrow’s light.