September 17, 2025 // Perspective

Keeping a Watchful Eye

Molly Jo Rose

“I finished it,” my 16-year-old son says as he emerges from the dark of the basement where he has been watching the 1995 film “Se7en,” a thriller about the seven deadly sins.

“What’s in the box?” I ask, alluding to the film’s ending. I won’t go into details about what’s in the box because it’s too horrific, but more than that, I have no authority to report on it as I have never actually seen the film. I was 21 when “Se7en” came out and already in the good habit of guarding my eyes from images my soul didn’t want to see.

And yet, I let my son watch it. Between YouTube, social media, and endless streaming services, his eyes see all sorts of things I would rather they didn’t. And while viewing modern entertainment is not necessarily one of the seven deadly sins, I know I have the moral obligation to show him good things. Phillipians 4:8 says, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” But the question is: How do I navigate the slow removal of guardrails as my son grows older with the desire to keep his eyes on what is good?

When he was younger, we aggressively monitored our son’s viewing. Like most parents, my husband and I limited screen time and carefully chose what he watched. But as our little boy started the slow transition into manhood, we opened the flood gates and started to show him our favorite movies and TV shows. We introduced him to Bill Murray and Scully and Mulder. We delighted in how much he loved “The Breakfast Club” but cringed as we sat on the couch with him listening to Judd Nelson say lewd things to Molly Ringwald. Everything with Chevy Chase was 10 times worse, and I could see our son absorbing the characters’ coarse behaviors in the way he laughed and repeated their lines. We had to figure out how to share what we loved while still teaching him the eye and soul connection.

Through my teen years, my mom governed what we watched. We were not allowed to zip the control box down to channel 22 where MTV veejays shouted over the roar of spring breakers in South Beach. We could not watch horror films or anything with the Brat Pack. Adult shows like “thirtysomething” were out of the question. Despite this, I can sing every word to “Video Killed the Radio Star” and recite most of the John Hughes catalogue.

While my mother wasn’t entirely successful at controlling what we watched, what she was successful at was countering our subterfuge with other things. For every “Twin Peaks” viewing, there was “Chariots of Fire.” For every episode of “My So-Called Life,” my mom was there to show us “A Man for All Seasons.” For every biopic of Jim Morrison, my mom put Dorothy Day on the screen. In short, the less excellent and praiseworthy world had met its match in my mother. Because of her, my siblings and I know the difference between media that makes us hungry for more entertainment and media that makes us hungry for more God. 

Like my mother before me, I am not without parental oversight. My husband and I watch over what our son views. We talk about the choices he’s making, but we realize he’s going to see things we would prefer he didn’t. He’s going to watch “Se7en” and “Squid Games” and other brain rot that isn’t getting him closer to heaven because he’s 16 and has yet to fully adopt the habit of connecting his eyes to his soul. He is in the middle of learning that the more good he sees, the more good he becomes. 

In the meantime, I could lock it all down and keep him separate from the world and all the things in it that entertain us but leave our souls wanting. Or I can do what my mom did and counter his viewing tendencies with content that is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable. I can put in front of him the kind of films and television that our souls long for so that as he becomes more of a man, he becomes more of the good man God intends him to be.

I cannot know yet if his eyes will grow more judicious in avoiding those things that are less pleasing to his God-hungry soul. All I know for sure is last night he watched “Se7en.” But tonight, we’re watching “Romero.”

Molly Jo Rose is a writer and English professor living with her husband and three children in Fort Wayne, where they are parishioners at St. John the Baptist. She walks a lot and writes a little.