I always get a little bit emotional when I start speaking about the culture, especially when I see young people like Lan and the other talented ones that are here. How sad that we adults have failed them so much that they have to take it in their own hands to try to save their generation. It's heart-breaking to me. If you're in this room under the age of 25 years old, I'm sorry. I apologize for my generation and those before me in recent history who have failed you.

And for those of you who are from embassies abroad, as Lan mentioned, I apologize that Hollywood and our entertainment industry is shipping out and exporting into your countries garbage, affecting your youth.

I'm also very encouraged by today because I hear Charmaine's wonderful work and the work that her organization is doing. And I see the young people and I see all of you. I'm in a different city about three times a month, speaking about the culture and how to take it back. Let me give you a word of encouragement, folks. There is an army of people like you building across this nation. People of different faiths, of different ages, in different cities, of different political persuasion who saying, I'm sick of it. Enough is enough and I ain't taking it any more. And you are part of that army that can change the culture, and I believe that it's happening as we speak.

How bad is it? Let me just give you in just a few minutes an overview. We'd like to talk about the cultural problem as being out there. The reason I entitled my book “Home Invasion” is because the adults have allowed it to happen. Kids, it's not about you. It's not about bad kids. It's about lousy parenting. And we have allowed as adults the American home to often have become the sump for the cultural sewage.

Now how can I say that? Some people get very offended when I say that. Well, kids might pass around the web address of a pornographic web site at school. They don't view it at school, folks. They come home and in the privacy of their own bedroom our children shut the door and are consuming hours of pornography.

What about television? What's the number one viewing choice of teenage girls today? Anybody have a guess? It's MTV. By the way, this ain't your mama's MTV with just music videos. Today's MTV is highly sexualized programming, with spring break specials on just about all the time, not just during spring break.

How about where kids watch each other go to the bathroom? Poo diving, where teenage boys jump in sewers as a challenge? The specials where teenagers are in their bikinis licking whipped cream off each other? What kind of message are we sending our kids about their value as human beings?

What kind of music are kids listening to today? Well, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the number one music genre of choice today among kids from all socioeconomic status is rap and hip-hop. Now I don't mean good rap, like what we were hearing a little version of today. I mean the violent and highly sexualized rap and hip-hop.

What about the video games our kids are playing? One of the most popular video games remains Grand Theft Auto. And if you think it's about stealing cars, parents, well, let's see. In some scenarios – now remember, the player becomes the gang member in the game, so 14-year-old boy that's playing the video game actually becomes the character that he's controlling. Sometimes they rape the woman before they steal her car. Or they have sex with a prostitute and then beat her with a club and you get extra points if you take the money back from her. Or you decapitate the cop, kick him in the groin, and then set his body on fire.

Now the last time I checked, kids can't get the Internet installed in their home on their own. A nine-year-old can't do that. And a 12-year-old can't get cable television installed in their home. And an average kid doesn't just have $60 in their pocket unless their parent gives it to them, to go out and buy the latest video game. No, it's moms and dads that are subscribing to the garbage that's now infiltrating our homes, which we say that we hate and we can't stand.

Have we gone crazy? The message of “Home Invasion” is, while we're working on the culture at large, we must realize that the power to restore our homes and make our homes a safe, nurturing environment that God intended for them to be rests very simply in our own hands. And let me quickly say, I am not talking about pulling the television off the wall and throwing the computers out of the windows. I believe that modern technology has the potential to be the great liberator of the American family when properly used. We allow parents to work at home more now because of the Internet. My goodness, I have my little Blackberry, I'm always in touch with my office. I can be at my son's five-hour track meetings on Friday nights in the winter – and they are five hours long – and take care of business between his events.

The world is at our children's fingertips. The wonders of the world. It can complete hours and days and months of research in seconds now. The point is to harness the good that technology has to offer us and to filter out the harm and to make our homes the nurturing environments that are building character within our children so as they go out into the world every day they have a moral compass and they know how to use it.

And if there are enough of us doing that then we will eventually affect the culture at large. Those young people that are in the room today, when we say the future, you are the future – you're the future now. The future is not tomorrow or the next day. Right now you are transforming, those of you in this room who I had the privilege of talking to many of you before we came in, are transforming your generation right now. And being that example to your friends and for those who observe you from afar who may never speak to you. And you always having to fight.

As adults, you know, we like to become so intellectual about all this. Yes, it's just harmless entertainment. Oh, yes, well, I want to expose my children to a variety of thought patterns. To expand their horizon and make them diverse in their thinking. I'm sorry, but there are just some things that are not negotiable. When we stand up and we incorporate time-honored truths into our families, such as fidelity, such as commitment, courage, purity, chastity, honor, integrity, those are principles that are not negotiable.

And what do we do, how do we start? The first thing I do when I talk to parents across the country is to say, you start by envisioning the type of adult you want your child to become, and the type of childhood you want them to have. See, I find this is a very unifying thing because it doesn't matter if you're liberal or conservative, or if you're Jewish or what your faith is, or where you're from. Most parents pretty much have the same hopes and dreams for their kids. We all want our kids to be marked by character. We all want them to grow up and have happy families of their own. There's not one parent that wants their son to be known as a slacker, or their daughter to be known as a slut. Not one. Right? But are we behaving as parents and as a society and in our own homes that we understand that what our kids are consuming by 6.5 hours of media a day? That's the average consumption level of adolescents today, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. 6.5 hours of media every day. Are we understanding that the messages that they're consuming on a daily basis are shaping their values and their character?

I tell parents, once you've decided this vision you have for your kids, the second step is to assess what's in your own home. See, it doesn't take an act of Congress to take back your home tonight. It takes a commitment. You have the vision. You assess what your children are consuming, and you compare what they're consuming to the vision that you have, and if they do not join together hand in hand, the second step is to commit to the daily battle. And it is a daily battle. As a mother of three teen-agers who are in three different public schools right here in the Washington, D.C. area, I fight the culture every single day in my household.

And you know what? It's not by having a home that is what I call a no-zone. If you make it about rules and regulations and negatives and everything we're against, you've lost. It's about what we believe in. I believe that you, Kristin, his sport team, are a creature of great value. I believe you, Drew, my son who is 18, that God has a plan for your life. It's a plan for good, to use you, to bless you, to honor you because you're someone of value.

We believe, and I can tell you believe in this room, we know what we're against but we need to state more often what we're for. What's wrong with saying we're for teenage girls never having to worry about being pregnant out of wedlock? What's wrong with saying, guys, we believe that you can be men of character that can grow up and lead families that stick together?

When we say, what's the harm in the media? Well, let's see here. In 1950 for every 100 babies that were born in this country, 12 were born to a broken family. That is, they were either born out of wedlock or to a family that would soon suffer divorce. Now with a lot of other social problems going on, especially removing God and His moral absolutes from the public square that started in the 1960's – and we could do a whole speech on that – how there was a systematic destruction of that in our country, what came alongside that removal was the replacement with this crazy media culture, replacing it with their values.

So fast forward from 1950, from when 12 children were born to broken families out of every 100, to today. Today for every 100 babies that are born in this country, 60 are born to a broken family. And there's no harm? What about our kids? One out of every three teenage girls will become pregnant out of wedlock by the time she's 19, at least one time in this country. The USA has the highest out of wedlock teen pregnancy birth of any Western industrialized nation. That is a shame on our country.

Twenty-five percent of kids who are sexually active will contract a sexually transmitted disease that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. Last year the Chronicle of Higher Education had a series of articles that talked about the suicide rate on college campuses. It's the highest it's ever been. Our kids, 17 and 18 years old that are entering as college freshmen are coming in record numbers with diagnosed clinical depression. The suicide rate among adolescents younger than age 14 – younger than age 14 in the last 10 years has increased by 75 percent.

Lan mentioned cutting. How many of you know what cutting is? My daughter's in middle school so I do get emotional about this because they're beautiful creatures when they're 12 and 13 and 14 years old. Cutting is the phenomenon of middle school children, mainly, taking knives and razors and cutting themselves just so they can feel alive. They're so over-stimulated and there's so much hopelessness – my gosh, they're just here by accident, right? They're here by accident. That's what they're taught. And you know, you're an animal, you can't control your instincts so have sex, and you're going to have to worry about diseases and pregnancy and everything is just an accident anyway. This is the message of hopelessness we're selling them.

If that's not enough to have you rise to your feet and say, not on my guard am I going to sleep at the wheel and just go fix dinner and shrug my shoulders at the problem. And people are beginning to see that. Good people like you are beginning to rise and say, that's enough.

My heart is that this generation and those adults of us in the room will join hands, become allies in the battle, and rise to the occasion. See, after you commit to the daily battle, you teach your kids and you teach each other that you do have intrinsic value in God's eyes, that there's a God that loves them and knows their name. That there's a God that loves you and knows how many hairs are on your head, and there's a purpose for your life, and adding meaning.

And then we must fight for our family time. Life is so busy, some of us are so involved in our church activities that we've forgotten that the little eyes looking at us from the dinner table because, you know, we've had to rush out again, are the little eyes that need us most. Parenthood is not a dress rehearsal. It's so fleeting. My oldest graduates from high school in a few weeks, and I look at him and I say to myself, I can't have a do-over. Can I have a do-over? Nope. He's leaving, going away. We must value and treasure every single moment that we have.

The other thing I would encourage parents to do is to put yourself in a teenager's tennis shoes for one week. See the pressures that are put on them by society. Understand the pressures they are under when they walk through the mall and an anorexic-looking 12-year-old girl is in a big poster in her underwear, made up to look like she's 25. When they turn on the television and all the marketing messages that are sent to them. In their textbooks even, all the horrible messages that are given. And the music videos. They cannot escape it because the mass marketers know that parents and teenagers are spending $150 - $200 billion a year on trinkets and toys.

See, we're the most economically successful nation in the world and thank you God for that. But among this incredible affluence and economic success are kids who are spending their money on trinkets and toys that many times are bringing poison into their minds and killing them.

And when you understand the pressure that's put on today's youth, and then you add this element to it, remember, it's adults that create the pornographic web sites. Adults design the advertising campaigns. Adults are slamming your child's e-mail inbox with pornography. Adults own MTV. Adults own all the five major media companies that produce the garbage. Your battle is not with your child. Your battle is with adults who have a different worldview than you do. And have been able to capture your child's ears and eyes because we have let them do it by default.

We need to teach children that they're being manipulated by this massive marketing machine. I have a whole chapter called Manipulating Minds for Money. It's a study on how MTV, specifically MTV because they're champions of it – by the way, Charmaine mentioned the wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl and parents were shocked. Well, that was produced by MTV on CBS. They're both owned by Viacom. There are five major media companies in this world that control probably 90% of all the entertainment media. That's why a crude guy like Howard Stern can be everywhere. He can have his radio show, he can have a book, he can have a movie, he can have a TV show because he's owned by the media empire that owns the publishing company, that owns the video distribution, that owns the radio station. That's how Paris Hilton all of a sudden is a hit in Kalamazoo like she is in New York.

It's a massive machine we're up against and it takes every fiber of our bodies to fight it. Specifically our kids need to understand how they're being marketed to today. I believe marketing is one of the reasons the United States has become the great economic powerhouse that it is in the world, doing a lot of good in the world. But it can also be very manipulative and be used for evil marketing techniques. And that's what's being forced on our kids.

MTV advertising executives actually brag – they brag – not about how they understand what teenagers want but how they've learned to manipulate the teenage mind into having the teenager have the desire for what the marketers want them to have. And very simply, they do this through feeding on a natural hormonal changes in the adolescent. So we all remember back when we were teenagers and hormones are fluctuating all the time and you're trying to figure out who you are and your body is changing. What used to be an American society where all the elements of society worked together to challenge and channel those energies into something positive. You had shows on TV like Father Knows Best. Think that show would make it today? Flip on the TV for 30 minutes and tell me how dads are portrayed. They are portrayed as wimpy and ignorant.

My message for the men in the room is: We need you. Your families need you. Your culture needs you. We love you and we appreciate you. And young boys in this room, do not buy the lie that's being sold by the left-over feminist mantra that's remade itself, that it's all about me and my body and my career and my mind. I don't need a man around the house. Your families are dying for you. And we love you and appreciate you, dad. (Applause)

But the marketers to our teenagers today take this hormonal level - instead of working to channel it into good - they feed it. They feed that growing sexuality through the programming I was talking about on MTV, the crude and rude. They actually have a character of a female that appears in all of their programming and they call her The Midriff. That's just their name for the type of character. And the teenage girl that they want our young girls to emulate – hey, it's all about: “My sexual power. And boys, watch out because I'm in control.”

How far back have we gone on women's identity in this culture? It's not about their minds. It's not about their emotional development. It's not about their nurturing spirit. It's not about their love and compassion any more. It's all about their sexual power. That's why our little girls today are dressing like streetwalkers. That's what you'll see if you go in the middle schools today – I went undercover for a few days in a middle school in Richmond, VA as a substitute teacher. The most shocking thing was to see how the middle school boys are completely overpowered by the girls and their sexuality and their attitudes.

And what is the boy model that's being put toward our youth today to follow? Well, the boy model is called the Mook, and the character that you see that our boys are flocking to on television and emulating: he's lazy, he's stupid, and he gets his thrills out of rude and crude language and behavior. And always living on the edge. Thus the poo diving and the poo camera. They know teenage boys are going to find that funny. They know the boys will keep coming back to watch the girls and all their sexuality and the girls are going to be feeling empowered.

You know what we have to tell our kids? You're being manipulated and you're being sold a lie. And it's a lie that is going to rob you of your best future.

Then a final thought: find allies in the battle. Don't do it on your own. Chances are that the mother instinct in the mom next door to you is saying the same thing that your mother instinct is saying. “This isn't right, I don't feel good.” But she hasn't been brave or bold enough to say anything. Many parents today haven't been brave or bold enough to step forward because we're all being our kids' best friends. We all want to be the best friend and not say no.

Make your house a warm, inviting, nurturing environment. Make it a home full of love and fun and alternatives. When kids come in our house and girls are dressed like this, pants down to here, rear end showing, the first time she's in my house I have a simple conversation. “Julie, you're a beautiful creature and God made you special. And He made you to shine in this world and you're somebody of value. So while you're here, I'm going to honor you. Go through my closet and pick out anything you want to cover up because you're not permitted to be gawked at. You're somebody to be valued.” Taking each moment and making it a learning moment.

There's just one quick visual that I'll draw for you. In the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, there was a young British runner by the name of Derrick Redmond who was poised to win the 400-meter gold medal. And in the final heat he was running well and he fell. He pulled a hamstring and fell. And the whole world was watching as this young runner pulled himself, in obvious great agony, to his feet, with pain etched on his face, and began stumbling down the runway to the finish line. And then you could see a disturbance up in the viewing stand and the camera zoomed in on an older man who was making his way down through the viewing stands, pushing people aside with this incredible determination, a determination equal to that of the runner trying to get to the finish line. And the older man pushed people away, made his way down to the finish line, and again the whole world watched as Jim Redmond put his arm around his son and together the two of them made it to the finish line.

Derrick Redmond left the race that day, no medal, barely finishing the race. But he left knowing that his father was not content standing by as a casual observer, watching him struggle. I submit to you that our youth today are struggling through life. Are we as parents going to stand back and watch as a casual observer? Are we going to get in there with them? Because if we get in there with them, they're not just going to stumble across the finish line.

I believe if we get in there with them and we fight with them, that when we make it to the finish line they will make it with arms raised in victory, knowing that they've succeeded in this great wonderful race of life. And they will rise up and call you blessed. Thank you.