Don't Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid: Confronting the Left's Assault on Our Families, Faith, and Freedom [Hardcover]

Marybeth Hicks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 23, 2011

Do You Know What Your Kids Are Thinking?
You Might Be Surprised

Many of us assume that this generation of young Americans is much like any other—but the fact is they’re not. Not even close. Numerous polls show the same result on issue after issue. Frightening percentages of our kids believe that

• Socialism is better than the free market
  
• Christianity is judgmental, and just plain mean
  
• America is the villain of world history
  
• Family does not mean marriage
  
• Human greed is destroying the Earth
  
• And, of course, we all need the government to take care of us

Columnist and author Marybeth Hicks reveals, with shocking confessions from the activists themselves, how liberals and socialists, atheists and radical environmentalists, have waged a continuous and largely successful campaign of propaganda in our schools and popular culture in an attempt to create a permanent Leftist majority that will usher in a very different America, with a new generation that expects to be dependent on the federal government.

But along with the shocking revelations, Hicks shows how we can break the Left’s hypnotic spell. If we don’t, she warns, we’ll soon wake up in a nation we won’t recognize as our own.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for
DON’T LET THE KIDS DRINK THE KOOL-AID

“Fellow moms and dads: It’s time to unite and reclaim the hearts, minds, and souls of our children from socialist indoctrinators! In shocking detail and with investigative zeal, Marybeth Hicks exposes the Left’s cradle-to-grave campaign to undermine religion, the traditional family, and free market capitalism. The best defense against this corrosive culture of entitlement and grievance is a good offense. Don’t Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid provides an invaluable playbook for parents who reject the Nanny State.”
—MICHELLE MALKIN, nationally syndicated columnist and author of the New York Times bestseller Culture of Corruption

“This is a tremendously important and timely book about the greatest disaster that could befall our country. No, it’s not economic—as bad as the economy is—it’s cultural, with a generation growing up utterly divorced from traditional American ideals. As Marybeth says, if we want to perpetuate America we need Americans, but our culture is rapidly undermining our children’s commitment to faith and freedom. Reading Marybeth Hicks’s Don’t Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid might be the most patriotic thing you do this year. If you care you about this country, please buy it, please read it, and please spread the word.”
—ERIC METAXAS, the New York Times bestselling author of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy and Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery

“As important as it is to win the political battles, as Marybeth Hicks shows in her stunning new book Don’t Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid, if we don’t win the cultural battle for our children’s minds and hearts, we’ll have no future at all. Too many of us dismiss the propaganda of the liberal media, the public schools, and popular culture as harmless, but as Marybeth shows, it has demonstrably changed the way the next generation of Americans is thinking. Buy this book, be warned, and better yet—follow my friend Marybeth’s advice and take action.”
—DAVID LIMBAUGH, nationally syndicated columnist and author of the New York Times bestseller Crimes Against Liberty

About the Author

Marybeth Hicks is a weekly columnist for the Washington Times, the editor of Family Events, a guest on many radio and television shows, and a frequent speaker across the country. A former writer in the Reagan White House, she is the author of Bringing Up Geeks and The Perfect World inside My Minivan. She lives in Michigan with her husband and their four children. Marybeth Hicks’s columns and blog posts can be read at myfamilyevents.com.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing; 1 edition (August 23, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596981512
• ISBN-13: 978-1596981515
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.9 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #427,664 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Marybeth Hicks is a weekly columnist for the The Washington Times and the founder and editor of OntheCulture.com, a blog for American women about the things that matter most. She is the author of Don't Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid: Confronting the Left's Assault on Our Families, Faith, and Freedom (Regnery Publishers, 2011), Bringing up GEEKS: How to Protect Your Kid's Childhood in a Grow-up-too-fast World (Penguin/Berkley, 2008) and The Perfect World Inside My Minivan-One Mom's Journey Through the Streets of Suburbia (Faith Publishing, 2006).

Marybeth began her career as a writer in the Reagan White House, and later was a communications specialist in the educational, healthcare and corporate sectors. A Michigan resident, she served as a gubernatorial appointee to the board of the Michigan Children's Trust Fund. She currently serves on the national advisory board of the Parents Television Council.

Marybeth Hicks is a graduate of Michigan State University. She and her husband make their home in Michigan and are the parents of four children.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 48 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Your kids are yours, not the state's. So protect them from the schools. September 1, 2011

By Craig Matteson HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

While I am from Michigan, I don't know the author, Marybeth Hicks, but our being from the same region of the country might have something to do with how much I like her writing. Her writing voice is clear, concise, and full of life, so I think it has a lot more to do with her talent that our living in the same great state. But I wanted to warn you of the possibility even while I discount it. She's a good writer and this is a very good book.

She shows us how are schools are now more about Progressive agenda indoctrination than teaching the fundamentals of learning. We send our kids off to school hoping that math class is about mathematics. I mean, how could that be turned into propaganda, right? Nope. Math is now a part of the pedagogy for social justice. They want math to be about hope and social justice. They should discuss "prisons, racial profiling, the death penalty, poverty, minimum versus living wage, sweatshops, housing", and much more including asthma. And learning math? That can be "reinforced" through worksheets.

Just as Jim Jones killed his followers with cyanide laced Kool-Aid, our schools are destroying our children's ability to compete in the global economy. Their skills are middle of the pack or worse while their sense of entitlement and dependence on the government is rising. Not everyone in Jim Jones' compound wanted to drink the Kool-Aid. They were not allowed to leave and many were shot. The politicians and teachers unions are making leaving the government run schools almost as difficult.

Hicks presents her material in three parts. The first part shows how the schools are undermining our traditional American character. You know, the one anyone who grew up before 1975 knows. She has three chapters showing how the schools are wholly captive to the agenda of the Left, their anti-family program, and their active attacks on faith and on anyone who dares to stand up for their faith in God.

Part two takes us through five sad aspects of the cultural change in our schools - and the new culture is Progressive indoctrination. That homosexuality is not only normal but something special and must be protected at the expense of the traditional family. Hicks also shows that teachers are taught to how and what to teach by radicals such as, yes, Bill Ayers. Traditional patriotism is suppressed in favor of an America-is-the-source-of-all-human-suffering agenda and an Earth worshipping enviro-agenda. Saying the Pledge of Allegiance is a problem for many in these classrooms, but the Pledge to the Earth is just fine. Multi-culturalism actively suppresses the idea of a melting pot or an American culture and increases societal division. And always and everywhere they are taught to bow to the Federal Government and to depend on it for their "rights". Nowhere are they taught the founding principle of individual natural rights.

Part three is just one chapter. Here the author tells us the truth that it is up to us to educate our children in the correct values. Knowing what the schools are doing, we have to work harder to teach them how to resist the indoctrination and peer pressure. We also need to band with other like minded parents and take back our schools and push this radical agenda out and replace it with the values she outlines in this chapter. You know, those so out of date values of love of country, love of family, of personal responsibility and self-reliance and of faith and sexual chastity. And YOU need to teach you children sound finances and economics because the entire Progressive agenda depends on a society that is completely ignorant of real economics so they can buy into the unicorns and pixie dust notions of the Left.

This is a short book that reads very well. I think you will find it energizing and inspire you to action rather than depress you and make you feel defeated. We can stand up to the Left. But we have to stand and not leave it to others.

Get a copy or two and share it with your friends.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Saline, MI

60 of 74 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Read on Raising Kids Who Embrace America's Founding Principles August 21, 2011

By mfranko

Format:Hardcover

Marybeth Hicks' latest book makes you want to give her a high five or perhaps even a big hug, but it comes with an eye-opening wake-up call that feels like an ice-cold bucket of water is being dumped on your head. Hicks' "smart mom" writing style draws the reader in and at times makes you gulp, but hilarious asides keep you laughing to the end.

Marybeth does more than spawn outrage against everything from the idiocy of no winners or losers in youth sports to administrators telling parents how and if they can pack their child's lunch.

Hicks exposes the truth in a way that reminds the reader our founding principles are worth fighting for. She is spot on in showing us the only way to ensure the fabric of our country does not continue to fray is to raise children of great American character who are unabashedly Christian, proponents of the traditional family, and grateful for our free-market system. Hicks deserves high praise for reissuing the charge to all of us when it comes to helping shape the next generation and giving us a new sense of necessary urgency.

45 of 55 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This Teacher Agrees-We Need a Return to Traditional American Values August 20, 2011

By mary jacob

Format:Hardcover

Marybeth shows how our children have been influenced by the media, schools, and cultural trends. The result is a generation with a very different definition of what it means to be American than past generations. Our children are at risk of having little to no understanding of the values that our nation was founded upon! This is a must read! It will enlighten your thinking about the impact these campaigns are having on our children without our consent.