We've watched the tv series Parenthood the past few years. The premiere of season 4 was this week. The children are growing up. Some are off to college or post high school jobs. What began as a show about the challenges families face depicted in a light hearted way has become a more serious show with a pretty obvious agenda. In this season's first show, Amber, the 20 year old niece of the Braverman brothers, Adam and Crosby, is working for them at their new music production studio. She is the receptionist/ errand girl. One of the guys in a band whose music the studio is producing flirts with her. He sends her a note to call him. Next scene, they are in bed together. Next day, the guys steady girlfriend brings some muffins by the studio to celebrate their six month anniversary. Amber looks a little surprised but really it's no big deal, you know. She tells Crosby for whom it is no big deal, you know. Adam, however, is the older brother with the older, more traditional values. He freaks out and screams at the band to get out of the studio. Crosby can't believe it. Amber lectures Adam on interfering in her 20 year old life. I mean, whose the grown up here. This is life and sex and dating today. Adam says he was protecting her honor. He didn't want that jerk to just use her. Really? Amber is ok with it and Adam comes around to this new wisdom and apologizes - for what- wanting to protect her honor? Guess so.
The second theme in this first show of the season had to do with Crosby and Jasmine who had a child, Jabbar, some eight years ago but just got married at the end of last season. In the first episode, Jabbar is seen kneeling at his bed praying. Crosby who sees him praying is more upset than if he had caught him looking at porn or doing drugs. He talks to Jasmine who knows the source of Jabbar's religious longings is her mother. So, Crosby decides to talk to his mother in law. He lays down the law that in his home he and Jasmine will be responsible for his child's religious training. So, she should butt out. What do you believe, she asks Crosby. Well, it's clear he doesn't believe anything in any traditional sense. Later in the show when he and Jabbar are sitting outside looking at the star filled night sky he teaches his son that he believes in him, and his mother and family. He feels blessed but he's not sure if there is a "someone" who had anything to do with it or not. That's it.
Wisdom is found where we find it. It is what seems right and good to us. Those people who are older are not to be trusted - at least not in the areas of sex or religion. All they do is parrot the traditional beliefs of the past which we all know don't work any more. The older brother who has raised a family is not hip to today's sexual ethic and Gramma's church doesn't have any answers to the big questions people ask today.
Where is wisdom today? Guess you just have to find it in yourself or in the stars.
