A tournament I’d rather not join

**EDIT, June 20, 2012:  It looks like this tournament has cut ties with MTV!  That’s great news!**

Teen sex, drug use, nudity, violence, under-age drinking & partying…

Is that your “REAL LIFE”?
Is that the “real life” you want for your kids?

MTV apparently thinks so, and it’s all depicted (in vivid detail, by teenage actors) throughout their new drama: SKINS. This new show sunk MTV to an even lower level of depravity when it debuted on Monday. Shame on me for being surprised when MTV got even more disgusting. I guess I won’t be unblocking MTV in our home any time soon (not that I’d ever be tempted to do so regardless of this new offering).

“Why are you ranting & raving about MTV on a soccer blog?” you ask?

Because there’s a local youth soccer tournament that proudly touts its partnership with MTV — the Beach Soccer Championship in Oceanside.

Thankfully, my son’s soccer club doesn’t seem to join many beach soccer tournaments. However, if my son’s team were to sign up for that tournament, Matt would NOT participate, and I wouldn’t be at all hesitant to tell the club my reasons for keeping Matt away.

The best outcome would be for the tournament organizers to take a stand for kids and family values by dumping their partnership with MTV. I’m not normally pessimistic, but in this case, I won’t hold my breath until the Beach Championships drop their affiliation with ultra-popular, sensational, and ubercool MTV. But who knows… maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

ABC story about “Skins”: