What are parents afraid of their kids reading?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So I was at the library the other day and a girl who looked about 11 years old came in with a woman who was presumably her mom. She picked out a book for school her and brought it to her mom and her mom kept insisting the book is inappropriate and wouldn't let her check out the book. Just why. What the fuсk was she afraid of her kid reading? It's not like she was checking out a porn magazine.

What was the book?

[Anonymous]

OP, was the mom trying to censor what you were reading? If not, why is this your business?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it depends on whether your kid is reading at grade level or not. When I was in elementary school, everybody (teachers, parents, school librarians, public librarians etc) was so excited about how far above grade level my reading skills were, and kept challenging me with “harder” material that I was definitely not emotionally or psychologically ready for. In hindsight I was definitely very behind on the social-emotional scale. There are things I read when I was eight, ten, twelve….that just shattered my heart, terrified me, made me feel uncomfortable and alone, and therefore ashamed, and have stuck with me through the decades. As a kid I was unable to express these feelings, and adults just saw a “very smart” young girl who understood and was stoic and seemed unbothered and “wise beyond her years” etc. about what she was reading. I wish I’d had more guardrails

THIS. I have a 3rd grader who reads at a middle school level. She reads grade level stuff but she churns through it fast and she needs longer, meatier books to keep her interested and occupied with reading. It's hard because I'm not going to read every freaking YA novel myself, so I read a lot of reviews, get recommendations from friends with older kids where I can vet for specific content based on what I think she'd be ready for, etc. There are lots of books that would be okay for a 12 year old but not for an 8 year old. I will say that DD actually will speak up sometimes when she feels a book feels too adult for her, but I feel like I need to be involved too, talking through it, it's not fair for an 8 year old to just have to navigate that on her own.

I was also a super advanced and voracious reader at a young age and I read a ton of inappropriate stuff, mostly from my parents home library, at age 8/9/10. Including my mom's extensive collection of trashy crime novels that included violent descriptions of like prostitutes being murdered. And my mom had read those books and knew I was reading them and didn't even stop to have a convo with me about what was in them. The ridiculous part is my mom was super uncomfortable talking to me about sex or puberty or relationships, too, so basically she knowingly let me learn a lot about those topics from trashy novels but was too embarrassed to talk them through or even check with me on how I was handling all that adult content.

I guess the cool thing now is to just let your kids consume whatever media they want but I feel like this is really lazy parenting and it's worth it to put in a little more effort than that.

What did you expect from her. Everything she knew about sex, puberty, and relationships was probably from those same books, so she wouldn’t have had anything to add. At least she made sure to pass on the knowledge that she knew, and she should be applauded for that. It’s hard being a mom.

[Anonymous]

Don’t censor your kids. I can see the point of a PP saying my kid is 7 or 8 and will have nightmares. But by 11, let it go. Let them read. They’ll be fine.

[Anonymous]

For the elementary school set, sex scenes. That’s what I watched out for. And those scenes are definitely in YA. Kids 10 and under are too young for that material, IMO. If you don’t want them to watch explicit sex scenes on tv, maybe you don’t want them in book form either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t censor your kids. I can see the point of a PP saying my kid is 7 or 8 and will have nightmares. But by 11, let it go. Let them read. They’ll be fine.

11 year olds can also have nightmares. But the bigger issue is that they might read something very adult for which they have no real context, and it can lead to anxiety (especially if they are too embarrassed to talk to you or another trusted adult about it) or a skewed misunderstanding of an important topic.

My nephew is really into science fiction, for instance, which I also love. So I get him tons of books based on things I've read. But a lot of sci-fi has sex, violence, and let's say "interesting" ideas about relationships and morality. The stuff I read isn't offensive but sometimes you need to be in on the joke, or understand certain references, in order to get what they are saying. If you take it literally, you might think a book is advocating for misogyny or racism when it's actually a criticism of it. Also some sci-fi is loaded with misogyny and racism. Anyway, I'm selective about what I give him and also think about what order he should read things in to understand best. I'm not censoring books for him but I'm also not just handing an 11 year old a book filled with sex and violence like "have fun, I'm sure you'll figure it out!" He's still a child.

[Anonymous]

But the elephant in the room is that you think by censoring these books the child isn’t exposed to the problem subjects. Naïveté on a pretty startling scale.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But the elephant in the room is that you think by censoring these books the child isn’t exposed to the problem subjects. Naïveté on a pretty startling scale.

So what? I don’t want my 9 year old to read books with explicit sex scenes. Yes, maybe he’ll see explicit sex scenes elsewhere. That’s possible. But he’s not checking them out from the library.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But the elephant in the room is that you think by censoring these books the child isn’t exposed to the problem subjects. Naïveté on a pretty startling scale.

Kids might have sex some day so should I just allow it in the home? Or they might experiment with drinking so should they just help themselves to a drink after school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But the elephant in the room is that you think by censoring these books the child isn’t exposed to the problem subjects. Naïveté on a pretty startling scale.

So parents should just stop parenting? At what age would you be ok with a child reading 50 Shades of Grey?

[Anonymous]

I read Stephen King books in elementary school and found out Santa wasn’t real by reading something… Superfudge maybe? In kindergarten.

I liked those books, but if my sensitive and nightmare prone 5 year old suddenly began to read above level I’d 💯 unapologetically screen the books he wanted to read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But the elephant in the room is that you think by censoring these books the child isn’t exposed to the problem subjects. Naïveté on a pretty startling scale.

No one said that we didn't think kids aren't be exposed to subjects like sex or drugs use or violence at all. But also: a lot of kids really aren't being exposed to all of it these days. It's not like the 80s when kids watched tons of TV their parents were not aware of and were learning about stuff from music videos and sitcoms. My kids and their friends actually really do know very little about these subjects, and what they do know they are mostly getting from trusted adults and not a steady diet of adult-focused popular culture.

That's actually specifically why parents are trying to be thoughtful about what books they recommend to their kids and when they are exposed to these subjects. Because kids today are often more naive than we were at the same age, sex and violence has not been normalized for them in the same way, and they are often more sensitive to it. Pushing them off the deep end without a life preserver isn't going to help anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But the elephant in the room is that you think by censoring these books the child isn’t exposed to the problem subjects. Naïveté on a pretty startling scale.

So parents should just stop parenting? At what age would you be ok with a child reading 50 Shades of Grey?

This. It's also not censorship to give your kid age appropriate content. If my 10 year old picked out a book on calculus at the library, I'd be like "it might be better for you to read this book on algebra first." I'm not censoring the calculus, I just know my kid won't understand it and I want him to understand some preliminary concepts first.

[Anonymous]

Anything pro maga or pro Nazi.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But the elephant in the room is that you think by censoring these books the child isn’t exposed to the problem subjects. Naïveté on a pretty startling scale.

What book was the girl trying to check out? Seems like this was all just a front to get to the point you actually want to make. You were paying very close attention, so what was it?