Woman to Woman is a point- counterpoint column featuring conservative writer Shaunti Feldhahn and liberal writer Andrea Sarvady debating controversial issues.

Fleeting expletives are on the mind when battling traffic. So on a recent drive I was musing about the FCC's crackdown when my young teen asked: "Isn't that, like, the government trying to be our parents?"

Right, honey. Now could you explain that to the grown-ups?

In the past few years, it's as though we've all been adopted by the FCC, that self-appointed arbiter of good taste and good art. Thus, "Saving Private Ryan" was aired with fleeting expletives outnumbering the flying bullets, while Martin Scorsese's documentary "The Blues" didn't pass muster. Soldiers can swear; blues musicians can't. Cheney and Bush can; Nicole Richie and Bono can't. Get the pattern? Of course, the FCC won't give you warnings in case you don't. Why, that would be censorship.

I think even New York-based judges share my aversion to the junk on broadcast TV. Yet I think they also share my confusion: If fleeting expletives are truly harmful to minors, shouldn't hearing one from the president be more damaging than hearing one from a disgraced reality TV starlet?

The courts didn't order up a blitzkrieg of F-bombs, they simply called the FCC's rulings "arbitrary and capricious," even "unconstitutionally vague." For now, paranoia prevails; some stations wouldn't air documentaries on 9/11 and Marie Antoinette at all, fearing their content might land them in the "indecency" bull's- eye.

Next up on the docket: giving the FCC more power over TV violence. It sounds helpful, until the Parents Television Council moves into overdrive. Then, the same watchdogs who took their kids to "The Passion of the Christ" will make sure we don't see so much as a brandished gun during the sacred family hours.

Another approach to fighting dreck? Talk to kids about the issues they confront every day. By advocating media literacy and critical thinking, we arm young people with both information and the same skills we prize as parents.

Yet if you're still wondering how to keep your kids away from "fleeting expletives," this simple plan might help: Turn off the TV. Monitor the computer. And, for friggin' sakes, don't let them drive with me during rush hour.

Andrea Sarvady is a writer and educator specializing in counseling, and a married mother of three.