Better a Job Than a ‘Suitable Role Model’ : Language: A generation lacking literacy, skill, even a sense of style gets a non-answer.

Back in the embattled 1970s, Americans were deluged by demands for “relevant theater,” “relevant education,” “relevant music,” “relevant theater,” even “relevant welfare.” We didn’t wake up until confronted with absurdities like “relevant diets” and “relevant hair styles.”

Now, “relevant” has been mocked out of usage. Like most language victories, however, the triumph was short-lived. Instead of “relevant,” we have “suitable role model.” What America’s young need, we are incessantly told, are “suitable role models.” We may have produced a generation lacking literacy, skill, even a sense of style. Do not despair. It’s nothing a good “role model” can’t cure.

No one knows exactly what a “role model” is or what makes one “suitable.” And no one really knows why the young need “role models.” But that hasn’t stopped a plethora of volunteers from bravely stepping forward.

A professional athlete earning millions of dollars to prolong adolescent fantasies speaks in reverent tones of the awesome responsibility he feels as a designated “suitable role model.” The vice president castigates a fictitious television anchorwoman because, pregnant but unwed, she is not a “suitable role model” for young women. An Eagle Scout, having chosen not to violate his oath (“A Boy Scout never lies!”) is kicked out of the Scouts because he refuses to lie about being gay. Declared unfit to serve as a “role model (for) mainstream American families,” he discovers that between oath and “role model,” the choice is easy--at least for the Scouts.

Being a “suitable role model” has even become a requirement for parenthood. When I became a father almost 30 years ago, I was expected to love, nurture and protect my children, to work for a decent society in which they could grow up safely. I’m a father, not a damn model.

Anyone can become a “role model,” or so we are told by those who believe “suitable role models” will save the nation’s young. Maybe so--but I cannot envision Daryl Strawberry or Charles Barkley being called upon to serve as “suitable role models” were they short-order cooks or postal workers.

The truth is--and it is a more serious truth than simply taking potshots at Dan Quayle’s banalities--that nothing is more unsuitable to the needs of the young than “suitable role models.” The idea that “role models” can make a substantial contribution to the prospects of the young--an idea, let me note in fairness, voiced more often by the liberal Jesse Jackson than by the conservative Dan Quayle--is nonsense. Neither millionaire athletes nor fathers doing what they should reasonably be expected to do will make that kind of difference.

Instead of looking for “role models,” we should be talking about their need for education, skills, training, jobs. The nation’s young, like the nation’s old and middle-aged, want what past generations of Americans have wanted: the chance to create meaningful lives through purposeful work. Give them learning and opportunity instead of “suitable role models” and they might have as good a chance for a decent future as Murphy Brown’s famous out-of-wedlock baby.