Never in history have we talked more and done less "for the children.''

Like some character in a Dickens story, we're constantly boasting about how much we care for the children, while we starve them on a thin gruel of mushy morality and poisonous pop culture.

Such as the Super Bowl halftime show.

How many parents sat semi-paralyzed through that extravaganza of bad taste, itching to grab the remote and turn it off, silently wondering, "How much worse can it get?''

How many cringed while their children watched crotch-grabbing rappers singing about their "whores'' who will do this and that and "anything in between''?

The accidental-on-purpose overexposure of Janet Jackson's bare breast on live, prime-time, family TV was a big shock - but really, why should it be? By then we had already seen culture sink lower than Kid Rock's IQ.

With dancers dressed like hookers, in garters and skimpy underwear, gyrating in simulated sex acts, why should we be surprised when all that artificial heat ignites a fire and someone's clothes are ripped off - just as promised in the lyrics ("Gonna have you naked by the end of this song")?

On Monday, the NFL harrumphed that MTV may not be asked to do another halftime show. MTV?

What, were they unable to hire Hugh Hefner or Larry Flynt? What were they thinking? Haven't they looked at any music videos lately?

Jackson warned everyone she would do something outrageous. MTV promised "shocking moments'' in her act.

What did CBS and the NFL expect? A "shocking,'' "outrageous'' tribute to Vince Lombardi? (To complain, go to Focus on the Family at www.family.org.)

I guess I am hopelessly old school. As I watched I began to wonder if those Islamic mullahs have a good point about American decadence.

But what worries me is not the parents who were embarrassed by the cultural sewage piped into their family rooms.

What worries me is parents who did not even hold their noses.

The kind who think it's OK for kids to be watch adult trash because "everyone does it'' - or maybe they just don't think at all.

What's really shocking is the stuff that doesn't shock us at all.

Some theaters are now offering special ID-cards so 13-year-olds can go to R-rated movies without the inconvenience of dragging Mom along.

When Ohio passed a simple law declaring that marriage is intended for one man and one woman, the media and intellectual elites fulminated as if it's an open season on homosexuals.

A tawdry parade of commercials by the most talented "creative geniuses'' in advertising gave us juvenile crotch jokes, a monkey propositioning a young woman and Napster shoplifters glorified as celebrities.

What we saw on Sunday night, if we watched closely, was just the latest obituary for traditional morality. Notice how we call it "traditional'' morality, as if it's your father's Oldsmobile on a used car lot, with many newer, sexier models to choose from - not one boring set of traffic laws for right and wrong.

So take a ride in the New Morality. If you don't feel like being a good parent, a dirty old man named Pop Culture will baby-sit "for the children.''

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E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 768-8301.