What is MAX?

In order to preserve the delicate and important relationships that define my family, I am looking at every piece of media that comes into my home with a very critical eye. Because of the sheer amount of junk that is out there I can no longer allow unlimited television, or unsupervised internet or video games. The negative messages that the media delivers to my children is wasting my children’s time, affecting their behavior and offending the standards of my home.

MAX protects my children.

The two most pressing areas of concern are the Internet and movies. We have already removed cable and limit television to selected shows.

I have two young sons, ages 12 and 10, and I am afraid to let them on the Internet unless I stand over their shoulder. Why? Because pornography is everywhere online. Pornography is not harmless. It is addictive. It is pernicious. It is pervasive and it will not be in my home. If you think pornography will not affect your home and children then you are denying the truth.

There was a time when communities picketed XXX-rated movie houses and drove the smut peddlers out of their neighborhoods, away from families and children. Today, all manner of perverse and reprehensible video is instantly accessible from the privacy of our homes. It is destroying marriages. It is affecting intimacy. It is damaging lives.

Pornography is not the only online danger to my children.

Today's technology gathering place is the cyber world of Internet chat.

Chat rooms are a meeting place for unidentifiable people who can say anything they want with anonymity. They are known simply by the name they put in the computer. There is no face, no presence, no point of reference, no reality. The removal of person to person indicators during chat eliminates inhibition and invites innuendo that would never be offered in public. And that's the good thing about chatting online.

The danger lies in sexual predators. More than a million are known today and millions more are waiting to "chat" with our children.

Why do we let that happen?

If you stepped out your back door and saw a fifty year old man, naked, lurking in the shadows of your own yard, you would do something! You would scream. You would call the police. Even chase him away with a broom. You would do anything but smile benignly when your thirteen year-old daughter goes out to have a "chat" with him. The last thing you would do is deny that he represents a threat to your daughter. Especially if you knew he was there 24 hours a day. So wake up! That same man is waiting to be an "online partner," a friend, and a confidant with your children through chat rooms.

Not always you say?

Yes, not always.

But enough times and with sufficient threat to create concern and warrant my efforts to take action and protect my children while they are online.

Are your children downloading music?

You better be careful when they walk in that candy store. In addition to the obvious ramifications of illegal music downloads, peer to peer networks are a sure source of pornographic email and content.

The Internet is both friend and foe.

Of course, the Internet is fantastic. And every day we grow to use it more and more and benefit from its quick access to information, entertainment and education. But staying stupid to its dangers is foolishness.

If I let my childen use the Internet unchecked and unfiltered I am guaranteeing that they will see pornography. It is only a matter of time before my child lands on a porn page. It is only a matter of activity before an innocent chat leads to vulgarity. It is only a numbers game before a chat room links my home with a sexual predator.

If you think not, you are wrong.

My choices are to either remove the computer or monitor my family's internet connections to the world wide web. I can take no chances when it comes to the safety of my children.

Like Hollywood cares!

Hollywood does not know my family.

The entertainment industry rarely creates entertainment that nurtures my home but they are always quick to promote content that offends, disrespects and profanes. Even movies promoted as family entertainment make me scratch my head and wonder if we don't live on different planets.

My idea of home is not a place filled with curses, profanity and vulgar roars of bodily function. Unless I want to invite Hollywood's common language into my home, I cannot watch most of the stuff that they call "funny", "outrageous", or "a laughfest" for the whole family.

Parenting today is counter cultural.

You tell your children to speak cordially and their favorite actors curse like sailors. In fact, if language gets any worse we are going to owe an apology to the sailors.

You teach your sons to play fair in sport and their favorite professional athletes act like criminals.

You teach your daughters to dress modestly and their favorite entertainers walk and talk like whores.

At some point, and in some effective way, we have to limit, control or stop the barrage of dissidence showing our children action, language and impropriety that is directly opposite to the culture of our own homes.

MAX gives me tools to preserve and protect my home.

Fortunately for me there is an answer and solution. It is MAX, a company helping parents protect their children and preserve their families. The most important relationships in my life, those associations between my family that are nurtured within the walls of my home, are being negatively impacted by the media. Those negative images, messages and behaviours are delivered to my home using technologies like computers, Internet, television, music and DVDs.

MAX gives me technology that I am using to control content and monitor activity.

MAX helps me make my house my home.