Mackenzie Philips

Mackenzie Philips

I remember when the actress Mackenzie Philips (son of John Philips of the Mamas and the Papas) was fired from her job on One Day at a Time. This was one of my favorite TV shows in the late 1970s, at least partly because Valerie Bertinelli was so darn cute and funny! Philips' firing seemed to related to her widely publicized drug problems at the time. Now Philips has published a "too much information" account of being raped by father the night before her wedding. This September 24, 2009 Daily Mail article is absolutely nauseating--including her account of when Daddy introduced her to heroin, and missed a vein in her arm.

One of the most troubling aspects of what the 1960s generation bequeathed to America was the widespread acceptance of drug and alcohol abuse. Philips described how Daddy showed her how to roll joints at 10, and introduced her to cocaine at 11. Where I lived in Sonoma County, this type of childrearing was, if not the norm, at least not all that unusual.

Unfortunately, intoxication tends to produce all sorts of very destructive behaviors, simply because it removes inhibitions--and there's a lot to said for being inhibited, when you look at how John Philips treated his daughter.

She said her father knew it could be his child, so he paid for the abortion.

‘My father was not a bad man. He was kind of a testament to what drugs and alcohol - in huge quantities - can do to a person's priorities. Their motives,’ she said. ‘I don't hate him. I understand that he was a very tortured man, and he sort of passed that torture down to me.’

I keep hoping that Americans wake up and decide to walk away from the culture of intoxication and casual depravity. But from what I see, it is gaining.