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CNN Talkback Live

Should Parents be Allowed to Host Parties for Teens?

Aired September 06, 2001 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JEANINE PIRRO, WESTCHESTER CO. DA: She engaged in various acts of a sexual nature, essentially taking off all of her clothes, inserting objects into a part of her body, as well as using whipped cream to entice the young teenagers to take it off her body.

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BOBBIE BATTISTA, HOST: What a way to kick off your high school senior year, especially when your parents play along.

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DET. SGT. JAMES CARROLL, NEW CASTLE POLICE DEPARTMENT: We also believe that there was evidence of alcohol consumption in the form of beer, and possibly some marijuana taking place as well.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, it was wild!

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BATTISTA: That party even made the front page of the "New York Post."

Robert and Rochelle Wien of Chappaqua, New York, were escorted to jail after hosting that backyard bash for their teen-aged son and 40 or 50 of his friends. They face charges of child endangerment.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think they are nice people. They just had some bad judgment and weren't thinking right.

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BATTISTA: Bad judgment or criminal behavior? What were those parents thinking?

Hey, everybody. Welcome to TALKBACK LIVE. Since when are booze and strippers part of teenage parties? Some of the kids at the Chappaqua party were as young as 15. Does it surprise you that the parents who were supervising apparently approved of the drinking, the drugs and the interactive stripper? Let's get right into this with Curtis Sliwa today, a radio talk show host on WABC in New York. He's also the founder of the Guardian Angels and its online branch, Cyberangels. Curtis, good to see you.

CURTIS SLIWA, WABC RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Oh, I pleasure to be with you again.

BATTISTA: And Rebecca Odes is with us, creative director of Gurl.com -- that's G-U-R-L, by the way -- and coauthor of "Deal With It: A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain and Life as a Girl."

All right, excuse my French, Curtis, but what the hell were these people thinking?

SLIWA: Well, you know, it's not unusual. I have seen this change from the '60s, where the baby boomer, hippy-dippy generation becomes the parents, and they took the attitude, hey, we are worried about our kids, you know, getting drunk and driving, partying at somebody else's location. So in the confines of my own house, I'll let the kid light up a joint, smoke here with the friends. I'll let him drink in my confounds. And then, naturally with the sort of freaky-deaky sexuality of the '90s headed in, now we are actually going to let them bring in a stripper in and conduct lewd acts on herself while they watch.

And we're going to exploit this for the benefit of what? The family? These people have the furniture upstairs and rearranged in the wrong rooms, and they really need to be made an example of, not just for those in their bedroom community, a very affluent suburb of New York City where Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Clinton have a home right up the road in Chappaqua, but all America.

BATTISTA: This will be one thing that you are not going to blame on the Clintons, are you?

SLIWA: Absolutely not.

BATTISTA: Rebecca, I am just curious, do parents want to be so cool to their kids and want to be so liked by their kids that it's just anything goes these days? Or, I mean, is that part of it?

REBECCA ODES, GURL.COM: I mean, I think that it's a combination of that and sort of a don't-ask, don't-tell relationship, where they would rather not discuss these things with their kids, and they would rather not have the conversation about whether if something is right or wrong, or what their feelings are about it, and just sort of let their kids go and do what they're going to do.

BATTISTA: You know, it's also interesting to me is that if we were just talk about booze, for example, that's certainly not new. I mean, that goes back generations, or at least decades, to where, you know, there is booze at teenage parties. I think it's the stripper that sent everybody over the top, and the lewd acts, and that kind of thing. I mean, should we be shocked? I mean, no one in our morning meeting per se was shocked at the idea that liquor was there, but the stripper is what got everybody. Should we be shocked about all of it?

ODES: Well, I think that kind of stuff has been going on, not necessarily with people who are paid to do it, you know, but that stuff has been going on for generations. It's about the parents being aware of it and the up-frontness of the act, I think, that's difficult for people.

BATTISTA: Yeah, because, Curtis, in my day, that was something you did when the parents were not home, right?

SLIWA: No. In fact, if you remember the famous movie featuring Tom Cruise in which he had the house in his suburban Illinois enclave all to himself, he tried to set up a brothel for all of his testosterone-crazed friends, and then if you remember he had to scurry to get everything back into order because the parents were coming home. That's the way it used to be for we, the baby boomers, when we were growing up.

But when the parents who are supposed to be the role models, the standard bearers, are not only participating in this, but encouraging this -- lighting up joints, drinking beers, doing the koochie-koochie with this stripper from hell who can take you around the world in 80 seconds or less, then you have to say to yourself the Howard Sterns and the sort of shock jocks of the world who have sort of parodied this, it's now becoming part of the fabric of America, because of the dysfunctional family that we always think just exists in the inner city is obviously in full effect there in one of the richest enclaves in all of America.

BATTISTA: Let me go to the audience here. Bionca (ph), is that is right? Go ahead.

BIONCA: The thing about it is, and I understand that you are a parent, but when you are a parent and you're dealing with other children, this is the issue. You're dealing with other people's children. And you can't have marijuana, which is against the law, alcohol, underaged drinking. If you are in high school, nine of the 10 times, may be the singers were 18 but still 21 is the age to drink, I believe, even in the state of Georgia or wherever -- that you can't drink and have underage drinking among other people's children.

You are going to get charged for it. You are going to go to jail for that. It's just anything under your house, you are going to get into problems.

BATTISTA: Yeah, I am guessing that most of the kids at the party, their parents did not know that this kind of thing was going on, which makes you wonder whether they might be liable for some lawsuits or anything. Do you think, Curtis and Rebecca, do you think these folks should be criminally charged?

SLIWA: Well, I think you are looking at Jeanine Pirro, who you had on those film clips. She is a rough, tough prosecutor there in Westchester County, she's done great work in going after some of the most esteemed members of her community who have been caught as pedophiles out on the Internet. So, she doesn't look at your pedigree, it's not how much you're worth, and then you're out of sight you're out of mind. She is going to clobber them with the full weight of the law.

But I would much rather see them out on the highways and byways of their trendy community picking up garbage in an orange jumpsuit as the Mercedes, the BMWs, the Rolls-Royces pass by, the fellow stock brokers of this Wall Street mogul who was responsible for triggering this off with those underaged kids, and naturally the wife who is probably going to have cardiac arrest having to actually pick up trash on a regular basis, doing community service.

I think that that will set a real example and resonate in that community and other communities.

(APPLAUSE)

BATTISTA: Rebecca? Do you think that they should be prosecuted to the full extent here?

ODES: What I am concerned with more than the specific legal ramifications of this case is the kind of thinking that led to it happening in the first place. I mean, I think the sad thing about it is that the culture that we live in lets this kind of thing happen, whether it's in movies or in life, and I think that, you know, it's this sort of like "American Pie" culture that's promoting this kind of thinking, and we really need another way of talking to our kids about sex and about having responsibility for their actions.

BATTISTA: Yeah, we're getting some e-mails like that. Victor in Miami says: "The message this sends to the kids is it's OK to degrade women and do lewd acts. Think of how these children will look at the opposite sexes when they grow up."

Danny in California says: "Teenage pregnancy out of control, teen males think having children is macho even though they have no way to support them. Now, we're waiving the carrot in kids' faces with some sleazy stripper. When are we going to learn?"

SLIWA: Well, you know, what definitely has happened in America is a malaise has set in, which is typified by the acronym MYOB, mind your own business. You see, I really believe that some of these kids, their loose lips would have sunk this ship, because I don't believe this was the very first time that this decadent and debaucherous activity took place in that household.

But because others always feel like they really shouldn't be prying into other family's business, you know, take care of it yourself, keep it under your roof, don't make it sort of like a noisy neighbor syndrome. Years ago, people would have been outside the doors. You would have had to have a cordon of police protecting that father and mother there that allowed that activity to take place, literally saving them from the outraged other fathers and mothers who would have wanted to lynch them on a pole. And I am not suggesting they be lynched, but if you notice, there is no great outrage coming from that community at this particular point.

BATTISTA: Really?

SLIWA: No! There have been no -- this is a two-day story in New York City, where people literally have a demonstration over the smallest indiscretion, and yet in that tiny bedroom affluent community, where even the lawn jockeys are golden gilded up there in Westchester County, you haven't even heard jack diddly-squat from the surrounding parents nor the very parents whose boys and girls were at this particular decadent affair where these sexually lewd acts were taking place.

ODES: You know, which I think has something to do with the fact that the way that teenagers are being represented and the kind of information that teenagers are getting about sex is about this debauchery and about this lack of responsibility, and like frivolity really. It's about a frivolous sexual encounter. And I think that there's a message going on in our society that says, sex without thinking about it, is OK.

And you know, that's really something that we at Gurl in all of the stuff that we do are trying to change, by talking to kids about sex in a responsible way.

BATTISTA: And that's GURL.com. And we just can't over stress that, because G-I-R-L.com is a porn site.

ODES: A little bit more like what went on at the party.

BATTISTA: Right, yes, exactly. David, your thoughts. Go ahead.

DAVID: Hi, I believe that these parents definitely went way too far. And first of all, I just wanted to say that their punishment -- their embarrassment alone is enough punishment. And I think they will be somewhat ostracized.

And I just wanted to say that parents are responsible for raising children in a healthy and safe environment. They need to be nurtured, treated with respect, and loved, so they can grow to their individual, full potential.

But you think I think that they're going to do it anyway. Boys will be boys, girls will be girls, and they're going to find a way to do it. And as long as there is major limitations, at least there was some control, there was some parental control. Not in this incident, but just in general. I believe in parental control. Do you know what I am saying?

BATTISTA: OK. So you're bringing up a point, yes, that maybe it's better for them to be doing it at home if they're going to be out there doing it anyway. We'll talk about that when we come from the break in just a few moments. Should Robert and Rochelle Wien face the criminal charges? take the TALKBACK LIVE online viewer vote at CNN.com/TALKBACK. AOL key word: CNN. While there, check out our note and send us an e-mail.

We'll be back.

Charges were dropped this summer against two Horace Greeley High School seniors who created a web site that detailed alleged sexual activities of female students. Access to the site was gained through a password. The District Attorney said the site was protected under the First Amendment because it was interpreted strictly as communication between the boys who wrote it.

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BATTISTA: What did -- I am trying to get some of these comments that are on the screen, and some of them are going right over my head. I want to come back to what David said a few moments ago, and have Curtis and Rebecca talk about that.

There is that philosophy out there that if my kid is going to do it anyway, then he might as well do it under my own roof. What do you think?

ODES: Well, I think that there is something to be said for knowing what is going on with your kids, and I think that's an important part of being a parent. And there are obviously safety issues involved with having your kid under your own roof. But I think that there is a line, and that line was clearly crossed in this situation.

SLIWA: Well, you know it's interesting, Bobbie, how many homes I have walked in of late, in which the kids will walk in -- there's literally a bong on the front -- the centerpiece there of the dining room table, an atrium in which parents are growing their own home grown marijuana there, using it openly, an assortments of pipes, and almost proud of this.

And then naturally the kids bring their other friends through, and maybe these parents are far more lenient than other parents, and they make the job of parenting so much more difficult for those who are following standards, for those who want to be role models.

Because look, our sports stars, they are rejecting this status. You just had a trial that completed down there in Atlanta involving the Gambino-run Gold Club, the strip club, in which you have Andrew Jones, all star from the Atlanta Braves, who had lewd acts done on him in front of people. Patrick Ewing, the great NBA center, the same thing. They didn't seem to be apologetic, they didn't seem to be sort of like really upset about this situation. And these are what these young jocks, in this case, are looking up to, thinking that this is what an athletic stallion is supposed to be like, to be sexually, constantly exploiting women on a regular basis.

Look at bada-bing in the disgrace of "The Sopranos" there, where they show these kinds of acts on a regular basis, and then we don't think that thoughts are going to become things in the minds of our impressionable youth?

BATTISTA: Let me bring Paul Pfingst in the conversation here. Paul is the San Diego County District Attorney.

Paul, thank you very much for joining us. These charges against -- what is your reaction to this whole thing? Are the charges against these folks appropriate?

PAUL PFINGST, D.A., SAN DIEGO COUNTRY, CA.: Well, unless I know all of the facts, which I don't, I can't. We give parents a lot of latitude in raising their children, especially with matters involving alcohol.

But there are some things that most states prohibit, and it changes from state to state. But in California, for example, parents are allowed to provide alcohol to children. And as long as the parent is supervising the child. And in fact, in California, you can do it up to 9 or 10 children at a time, as long as they are supervised, in a house, and not in a public place.

If you go into a public place, the law changes because juveniles are not allowed to have alcohol in public places in California, and in most other states. So every state has tried to confront issue parenting supervision in a slightly different way, especially involving drugs and alcohol.

BATTISTA: So, it's your duty not to allow the kids to leave the party if they have been drinking, though?

PFINGST: And can't have one of these big keg parties with 30 or 40 kids. We've made that illegal. You can't do that, even if you have parental supervision. And you can't charge. You can't have a party where kids are paying at the door to come in. That's illegal, too.

But what -- if a parent wants to sit down under supervision with a group of kids and have a glass of wine -- I mean let's not forget, some churches give wine as a part of their celebration to young people.

BATTISTA: Right.

PFINGST: That's all right. What we say is you can't have these huge keg parties, and the kids can not be out in the public place, and certainly you can't have the kids driving.

BATTISTA: Let me run this by you. L.J. in Mobile, Alabama, says a male stripper doing the exact same act would be charged as a child molester.

I don't know if that's the case or not. But is it illegal for kids to hire a stripper if they are underage?

PFINGST: Well, it depends how old you are. In alcohol we talk about the difference between 21 and 18 being a critical distinction.

BATTISTA: What if you are 16?

PFINGST: Well, if you are 16; well then it's a question of by themselves can they hire a stripper? Gosh, I hope not, but I don't know a law against it, frankly. I would have to look and see.

BATTISTA: Is it illegal for your parents to let you watch a stripper perform lewd acts for other children?

PFINGST: I think the law we'd look at is contributing to the delinquency of a minor. And what you would have to look at is the circumstances; and if we were to prosecute a case like that, which I have yet to the hear ever having done (sic), we would prosecute it under that section as a misdemeanor and a jury would decide whether this was contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

But that leads us down that slope that everybody is concerned about: Parental liberty to raise their children in the way they see fit as opposed to letting a child go to an adult movie. Suppose you have an R or X video inside the house; where does this begin and end? I'm not sure we leave that to a jury. A prosecutor can bring charges, but ultimately in this country it's a jury who decides the issues of guilt of parenting -- not prosecutors, not defense attorneys and not judges.

SLIWA: Yes, but relief here, Bobbie, may be in civil court. Now, in this affluent bedroom (ph) community that is very similar to a lot of other well-to-do communities in America, there are like 10 lawyers for every one citizen. If these parents, who are lawyers, or know of lawyers, or related to lawyers, start filing kazillion-dollar lawsuits against these two cretins with chromosome damage who, I might add, child welfare should be looking into, then there might be that fiscal pressure applied to future situations in which parents sort of become very lax, who's morays are sort of like no longer in existence.

If the fiscal pain on them is applied, I think that could even be greater than the embarrassment, or potential incarceration, or even a show trial that I know Jeanine Pirro, the D.A. will put on there -- she will not capitulate, she will not plea bargain. She will take the poor jury and let 12 men and women decide there what the fate of these two should be.

BATTISTA: Let me bring in a young person's voice from up in that area. Natalie (ph) is on the phone with us from Chappaqua.

Natalie, I don't -- you don't go to the high school that we're talking about here, but you go to the neighboring school?

NATALIE: Yes, I go to Fox Lane, which is in -- it's the Mount Kisco-Bedford District.

BATTISTA: OK, so what do you think about all of this?

NATALIE: I think it's kind of ridiculous. And I'm a young -- I'm a senior in high school and, you know, I get invited to these parties and my friends go to them and stuff. And I think it's very poor judgment on the parents' part because, no matter what, the parent is in control. And like, when you hear about these parties usually it's kids sneaking off to them and stuff and like -- it's not -- I mean, they're still kids. Even if you're 18, you're still a child in you're living in your parents' home.

BATTISTA: Are you saying that these sort of parties go on most of the time without a parent being there, you know, without supervision, like nobody's home? Or are you saying that they go on where the parents know this stuff is going on all the time?

NATALIE: It really depends on the household. Like sometimes -- there have been many incidents last year in the Fox Lane District where parents were home and there was booze and stuff and they were, you know, they were penalized for that. But a lot of times these do happen without parents knowing, and parents of the guests knowing.

I'd be surprised to know if the parents of these other boys knew what was going on. And also I think it's bad judgment on the boys who were there on their part, because if you know something like that is going on, you know that's wrong. You could leave, you could call your parents, pretend you have a headache and leave, you know what I mean? There are like so many outs.

BATTISTA: Just about all of the guys we asked in the audience said, well, I wouldn't leave that party, though.

Natalie, thanks very much; appreciate you calling in.

By the way, are they talking about it up there? Do you have friends over at Horace Greeley or...

NATALIE: Oh, definitely. All day at Fox Lane all the teachers were like, what do you guys think about it? What's going on? What's going through your brains, so...

BATTISTA: And what do most of the kids say?

NATALIE: Most of the kids were appalled. It's really surprising; no one was really in support of it.

BATTISTA: All right Natalie, thanks very much.

PFINGST: Bobbie?

BATTISTA: yes, go ahead.

PFINGST: What we found when we speak to youngsters in these cases, the youngsters -- most youngsters really appreciate supervision. They actually want it. And when parties start getting out of control and there's alcohol and drugs around, it makes a lot of youngsters very uncomfortable.

And one of the things I found over the years in dealing with these types of cases is how much youngsters like Natalie really would prefer that there be strong parental supervision to a degree, and not overwhelming -- but parental supervision because it makes them feel better about what's going on. They do recognize the necessity of parental obligations to supervise these type of gathering. And alcohol shouldn't be there in a large gathering of young people. In most states that is illegal.

SLIWA: But I think that part of the problem is this feel good, let's be your buddy syndrome that is permeating society now. You look at the book "Iron John," where men run off and want to find their inner child, banging drums, wearing loin cloths, wanting to act like a child again.

There's this whole theory out there, this whole practice that parents have to be like the kids themselves so they can relate to them, so they think the lingo, they know the hand gestures, so they'll be cool, happening, hip, fly. And that's complete nonsense.

The kid needs a disciplinarian, a role model, a father and mother that they can emulate and become just like. And these two loony- kazooneys there in Westchester -- if the rest of America is like them, we're all in a lot of trouble.

BATTISTA: I've got to take a quick break here. Paul, thanks; thank you for joining us today.

We will talk to a Westchester reporter when we come back. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: Welcome back.

We have a number of people phoning in here. Let me get David McKay Wilson on the line with us. He's a reporter with "The Journal- News" in Westchester, New York.

David, this story -- Curtis doesn't think that it seems to be causing much of a ripple up there. What do you say?

DAVID MCKAY WILSON, "JOURNAL-NEWS" REPORTER: Well, the people who I've spoken to in the streets and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I think the people are very -- the parents are very shocked at this whole episode.

Chappaqua's really known as -- it's a child-centered suburb where, you know, the kids are kind of the center of the life in this town with the sports and the schools. And the parents really kind of, you know, trust the other parents to look out for each other's kids.

BATTISTA: Well what...

WILSON: And so they're very shocked at this.

BATTISTA: And I assume you're talking mostly about the parents of the kids who were there.

WILSON: Well, I haven't actually talked to any of the parents of the kids who were there. I'm just talking to people -- you know, people in the street, people who...

BATTISTA: I have to interrupt the show just a second you guys. We have to go to Joie on the news desk for an update. Stay with us.

(INTERRUPTED BY CNN COVERAGE OF A LIVE EVENT)

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