For real, did our parents let us read V.C. Andrews?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The title “For real, did our parents let us read V.C. Andrews?” made me laugh.

My parents barely knew what I was doing at any given hour of the day. And that was the way everyone parented back in the 80s/90s. Don’t you remember the public service announcements on TV: “It’s 10 o’clock. Do you know where your children are?” Haha. They needed to remind people that they had kids…

This is much healthier than today’s parenting style. For real.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My oldest daughter is 12, and reads all the time. It made me think of everything I was reading at her age…including allllll the V.C. Andrews books. I remember being engrossed by the stories and reading all of the Flowers in the Attic, Dawn and Heaven series. Now I’m like, what the what?! How did my mom not only know I was reading them, but encouraged it and thought it was great I was reading so much. This stuff is beyond trash!

(And yet…I still have fond memories of being so fascinated by these books, and apparently I am not alone, because they’ve all been made into Lifetime movies!)

Did you read V.C. Andrews growing up?

8th grade, parochial school, Flowers in the Attic was one of our assigned books for reading.

I don’t believe this for a minute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read VC Andrews, Judith Krantz and a lot of other smut in middle school. Frankly, I’d be happy if my kids read these books. At least they’d be reading something!

Same, plus I found my mom's old copy of Valley of the Dolls. I attribute the consumption of racy trash as critical to my sex education and simply learning about different worlds.

[Anonymous]

I too read all of this. And now in my late 30s I can’t get enough of ACOTAR, fourth wing etc. I used to just love reading so much and I’m glad these books brought it back. I haven’t watched tv in a year and am fully entertained by the books (despite the crazy going on at my fed job). I hadn’t read for a decade since having kids. I lacked an attention span no matter how hard I tried.

I never saw any harm from reading smut, even from about 12. I always had very healthy relationships and a great marriage.

[Anonymous]

Not only did I read them, I checked them out of my middle school library!

[Anonymous]

My mom specifically told me I could not read it. So that's what I did. I snuck it off her shelf, read it in secret and put it back each night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom specifically told me I could not read it. So that's what I did. I snuck it off her shelf, read it in secret and put it back each night.

Some kids sneak alcohol, others sneak inappropriate books. Such a rebel.

[Anonymous]

lol yes! we passed those and other smutty books around at school. You could always tell where the sex scenes were because those pages would be grubby.

And yes, mom had no idea. Or if she did, pretended she didn't.

My teen got her early smut fix via fan fiction. Those were some interesting conversations (because she has no filter and talks to me about absolutely everything): "... if someone's having sex... and someone pees on someone... do they stop and change the sheets right away, or...?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom specifically told me I could not read it. So that's what I did. I snuck it off her shelf, read it in secret and put it back each night.

That's my kind of rebel

[Anonymous]

I started reading whatever my mom had around when I was about 8 or 9 years old, so yes, VC Andrews and a lot of Stephen King. I picked up Jackie Collins closer to middle school lol.

I definitely missed out on some good kid's literature.