When our son was three years old he was Super Man. Then one day he morphed into Flash Gordon, only to quickly turn into a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. And his older brother? He was also Super Man — that is, until he decided he was Bat Man. But by five he was Zorro — until he became the red Power Ranger.

My husband and I aided and abetted these innocent childhood imaginings, indulging the boys in costumes and pajamas with little capes that they gleefully donned in their endless quest to “get the bad guys.” It was all great fun and I have piles of old photographs to prove it. I even lugged around one of those huge video cameras to record the epic battles and victory celebrations.

Since the beginning of time, little boys and girls have pretended that they were someone other than who they were created to be. And although most parents play along as I did (even often taking on the persona of a helpless damsel in need of rescue or an evil villain to be conquered), we always returned to reality.

Never once when either of my boys firmly announced a new identity did I consider assigning him the imaginary role for life.

Enter Hollywood types. You know, the people who play roles for a living. You might think that they get the “pretend” thing better than any of us. But in today’s world of moral relativism, where the lie becomes the truth and the truth the lie, some of these adults seem to have lost their minds.

Academy Award-winner Charlize Theron unintentionally revealed in a recent Daily Mail interview how it is children who suffer most when adults have no sense of morality — or even common sense. Miss Theron proudly bragged about the “fact” that the son she adopted as an infant is really a girl. She explained, “Yes, I thought she was a boy, too. Until she looked at me when she was three years old and said: ‘I am not a boy!’”

The pronouncement from the lips of an innocent three-year-old boy is apparently all it took for his mom to start treating him as a girl. Mom eagerly began dolling Jackson up in dresses and referring to him as “she” and “her.” The mental and psychological abuse of this little one has been going on for four years — over half of his life. Jackson is now seven, and it has been emphatically announced to the entire world by his famous mother that he is a girl.

Tragically, the abuse of children’s developing minds is pervasive in our modern culture. Author Marcia Segelstein’s newly released book, Don’t Let the Culture Raise Your Kids, could not be more timely. Designed to help concerned parents unravel the madness of our toxic culture and find ways to fight back, it reveals how adrift we really are. But it doesn’t end with the sadness. Mrs. Segelstein equips responsible adults with ways to counter the secular values that contradict what sensible people have always known to be true. Mrs. Segelstein reminds us that since Hollywood and the mass media are largely composed of people who are so adrift that they can’t distinguish truth from the imaginings of a three-year-old, you certainly don’t want them to influence your children.

Mrs. Segelstein also carefully documents how much of what is taught in public schools has emerged from the same sordid worldview prevalent in entertainment. It’s pretty shocking to read the numerous examples of how even the youngest of children are manipulated into believing that there is no ultimate truth or reality; that anything and everything is “fluid.”

The biggest problem America faces are lost adults whose bizarre beliefs are saturating an entire generation of impressionable young minds. And while many decent moms and dads are hard at work and busy doing good for others, their own children are drowning in a putrid sea of fluidity.

How do we save our sons and daughters? By teaching them Biblical truths and practicing what we preach. “Keep in mind,” Mrs. Segelstein writes, “that the ultimate goal is to instill the faith, otherwise all the protections you put in place, all the precautions you take, all the world-proofing you do, and all the loving, authoritative parenting you demonstrate will be in vain: your most pivotal role is as primary teachers of faith.”

To learn more about Don’t Let the Culture Raise Your Kids, visit osv.com/ck.