My name is Brad Stine. To my friends I am simply referred to as Brad. Anyone else can refer to me as Sir, Your Majesty, Your Eminence, or any number of titles befitting my exalted position as professional laugh-master and future has-been.

In reality I don’t care how an adult refers to me, BUT I do have a problem with what kids call me. To anyone younger than me, and who hasn’t been given different instructions, shut up and listen close. My name is, and always will be, Mr. Stine.

Are you listening, all you politically correct, oversensitive, let’s lower ourselves to the kids level, pampering, naïve dorks?

I had a kid refer to me as Mr. Brad the other day. Mr. Brad? What former hippie-inspired, neo-cultural reference is that, and who thinks it’s appropriate? We have kids bringing guns to school to wipe out their classmates, and there are adults that believe expecting kids to respect their last name is too oppressive?

Only in this new age of PC crappola would this pass by unnoticed. I grew up with Captain Kangaroo. That’s right Captain…KANGAROO, not Captain Tim. I grew up with Mr. ROGERS, not Mr. FRED. Making ourselves too familiar and accessible to kids is only going to bring us down to their level, not raise them up to ours.

They have to earn the right to be considered adults. This isn’t helped when the icons they grew up with didn’t consider themselves unique or, more disturbingly, didn’t want to be considered more MATURE!

They grew up with Barney. Not Mr. Dinosaur, or Captain Carnivore… just good old reliable, don’t expect any adult perimeters from you, Barney. "Duh … look kids I’m just as dumb as you are! Do de do de do!" "Blues Clues" refer to the host as Steve, and later Joe. Where’s the respect? Where’s the subjugating yourself to a superior?

Grandpa used to be a term of endearment. An acknowledgement of a life lived and experience gained. Now it’s a derogatory term meaning “old and useless”. “Get outta my way, Grandpa, I just got my drivers license and I can’t wait to abuse it!”

We keep this up and the next thing you know teachers are going to start dating the kids after they finish their homework…oh wait, that’s already happening. How many new cases each day do we hear of a teacher having sexual relations with her student? It couldn’t have anything to do with the 24-year-old intern referring to herself as Miss Bambi to the 17-year-old boys she teaches, could it?

Kids need to be taught respect of their elders, not another way to diminish the line between adulthood and adolescence. There has to be a specific delineation that constantly reminds the young ones that we as adults are still smarter, more experienced, and better than they are.

If you are a parent and don’t have your kids refer to you as Mom Nancy or Dad Bob, why would you let them speak to other adults like that? I know, I know, some of you may think I’m being a little hard on you and the truth is…I am. That’s what I do. Someone has got to teach the country how to get back to sanity. I do it because it’s my calling and my life purpose. Oh yeah, and cause they pay me.