Hey parent, please look into this

I just noticed an ad (Super Nanny Casting Call | WKRN.COM) at Nashville Is Talking and thought it warranted a post on parenting. "Super Nanny" is good reality TV (it's from the self-help genre, I'd say) and whenever I've happened to catch an episode, I'm reminded of the things that I need to be doing to raise my children.

Parenting, like religion and politics, is a touchy subject. I was reminded of this some weeks (months?) ago when I was doing e-battle with "Mack" about how we choose to raise our children (here). Almost any discussion about parenting involves stepping on toes, but my view is that the proof is in the pudding, and the more we make the subject off-limits the farther in a parenting pit we go. Sure, some children are exceptional challenges, but most aren't, in my experience.

But back to "Super Nanny." I firmly believe that ones ability to parent "effectively" is closely tied to one's character. Good parenting isn't a matter of being clever or intelligent. Though I think most parents have a good idea about how we should raise our kids, we don't want to be held accountable for how we're doing it. This type of show (and any example of good "counseling," in my opinion) is just someone helping us to identify or remember what we already know or can readily know but are failing to implement or don't want to hear.