‘Hollywood Exposed’: Actress Tina Griffin Empowers Parents, Teens
At age 20, Tina Griffin left the Wisconsin farm where she’d grown up milking cows and baling hay and drove 2,000 miles to Hollywood to take her shot at acting. She was a working actor for 10 years, appearing in movies and TV shows.
Over time, Griffin became aware of the gap between the roles played by her fellow actors and their lifestyles off the set. Many of them were glamorizing or at least prompting negative behavior and values on the screen while sheltering their own children from such influences.
Eventually, she left acting and began speaking out about the disparity in Hollywood between fiction and reality. Since that time, Griffin has spoken to countless thousands of teenagers and parents at home and abroad, in venues ranging from schools to cruise ships to music festivals. “I always hated lies and deception,” Griffin said.
“And I loved exposing the truth so that they could get the answers they needed to make an informed decision.”
In her on-the-road show, “Hollywood Exposed,” she shares the “secrets” of Hollywood celebrities, explaining how they kept their children from viewing violent or obscene entertainment. She also lifts the curtain on the false premises presented in the media—about drugs, partying, and promiscuity—that lose their glamour and destroy the innocent in real life. She talks with teens about the dangers of drug and alcohol usage, how to deal with the low self-esteem so often created by social media, and how pop culture fads can be avoided.
Her “Counter Culture Mom Show” features an array of issues and guests with a focus on the destructive effects of media and pop culture on young people.
“It’s critical that we don’t allow our kids to be raised on technology,” Griffin said. “What are they going to get out of it? Most of it is not good entertainment, not even good media, and they’ll spend all their time doing that instead of developing the talents and gifts they have within them.”
From her parents’ example, her experience as a mother, and her many encounters with teens and parents of all backgrounds, Griffin shared below some core lessons on helping the young become mature, happy adults.
Give Kids a Sense of Purpose
“If our kids saw that they could give back to the culture, and they were nurtured in that way, we’d have a lot less suicides, a lot fewer kids doing drugs or cutting,” Griffin said. “A lot of them don’t have people investing in them, spending the time to help them build their purpose and mission in life.
“When people have a sense of purpose, they flourish, they’re successful, and they have a reason to live. Once our kids grasp the purpose and reason for why they’re here, we will see the culture change quickly.”
Control What Comes Into Your Home
Controlling influences from outside the home is crucial to this goal of purpose. “We’ve got to raise the bar. We have to have 110 percent control over what comes into our house,” Griffin said. “It’ll take some time and effort, but it’ll be a lot less traumatic and more rewarding if we spend the time now being diligent on what we allow in our homes and in our children’s hearts and minds.”
Instill a Good Work Ethic
One additional focal point of Griffin’s message is the value of instilling a work ethic in the young. “Growing up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, we didn’t have much, but both of my parents were very hard workers. My dad always said, ‘You never give up. If something doesn’t work, Tina, you just try something different.’”
Besides helping on the farm, Griffin worked several jobs during her high school years, like waiting tables in restaurants, babysitting, and marketing for an advertising firm. “I loved working,” she said. She and her husband have planted this passion in their children. The oldest has founded a business selling cookies, his younger brother operates a lawn care business with a friend across the street, and a daughter works regularly as a babysitter.
All the kids pitch in when they go on tour with Mom. “I had a couple of guests on for parenting, and they encouraged our audience and me to get our kids involved in doing tasks with us, even if it might take longer, because we’re spending quality time together and teaching them something in the long run,” she said.
‘Stick It Out’
To weary parents everywhere, Griffin offered this encouragement: “When we’re battling a dull, dark time in our history, our light needs to shine brighter. If we’re gold, our light will shine brighter. We just have to stick it out. The hardest job parents have is being a parent, but the payoff is great.”
Griffin’s last thought—“The hardest job parents have is being a parent”—may seem like circular reasoning, but its meaning hits home with all moms and dads trying their best to raise good kids.
By Jeff Minick | The Epoch Times
