What are parents afraid of their kids reading?

[Anonymous]

As others mentioned, when your child reads significantly above grade level it may be a concern. Librarians at DCPL and staff at independent bookstores such as Politics & Prose were excellent at making suggestions for my voracious reader, especially when she was younger. It became almost a game of "Test the librarian / bookstore staff" for a while but we never censored what DD read and she still reads a broad range of books today. She is now 14.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I read Flowers in the Attic at age 9. If I had not, I would not have been exposed to child abuse of that nature or incest until I was older.

Ultimately, I was fine, but parents restricting content isn't always naive. There are shades of grey here.

Really? You don't...read the news?

At 9?!

The news wasn't like it is now, obviously. If you didn't sit down and watch it or read the paper you didn't see it. What 9-year old was sitting down for the nightly news every day?

[Anonymous]

Is this really that confusing, OP? Do you not read? There are lots of topics young kids are not mature enough for, regardless of reading level. There are lots of topics that may be perfectly fine for most kids, but for that kid, because of their specific developmental stage or life experiences, would find upsetting or inappropriate.

I never thought I would be the parent who banned Garfield but it turns out John spends a lot of time dieting and my 8 year old for whatever reason latched onto that and suddenly every meal was a conversation about counting calories and what the scale is going to look like tomorrow. So I took away Garfield for a little while. I'm sure lots of parents were judging me in the library when I had to keep telling him no on Garfield but they don't have to eat breakfast with us.

[Anonymous]

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

Yep.Same for me. I did not need my first exposure to sex to be a violent rape scene followed by a forced backalley abortion. I was 10. I could have done without reading Dolores Claiborn at 12, too. Not every book is for every reader. It's fine to steer your kids away from books they do not have the maturity to handle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is an odd question. Are you not familiar with the fact that books are written about anything and everything? Whatever topic she didnt want her 11 year old exposed to is what that book was about. Sex, rape, drugs, suicide, violence, death, who knows maybe it was conservative economics or new age philosophy. You can of course debate which of these is worth censoring or not, but without knowing the exact book, you cant judge. Its normal for parents to want to understand what their child is consuming in all forms.

+1

[Anonymous]

You have no idea of the context, OP, to the point that I doubt you are even a parent. Maybe the kid needed a book for a school book report and the teachers had stipulated a number of pages, or a genre, or no graphic novels. Librarians are basically worthless at helping with this stuff so it is up to the parent. I told this story before but I had a list of books for my 10 year old that I couldn’t find, and the librarian informed me that they try to only stock 21st century books but I could special order “those old books” if I really wanted them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You have no idea of the context, OP, to the point that I doubt you are even a parent. Maybe the kid needed a book for a school book report and the teachers had stipulated a number of pages, or a genre, or no graphic novels. Librarians are basically worthless at helping with this stuff so it is up to the parent. I told this story before but I had a list of books for my 10 year old that I couldn’t find, and the librarian informed me that they try to only stock 21st century books but I could special order “those old books” if I really wanted them.

You have a very different experience of librarians. We've found them to be incredibly helpful and enthusiastic about helping kids find appropriate books. But your first point is right--"not appropriate" could mean that the book doesn't fit the assignment parameters.

[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.

When I was in 8th grade at a small private boarding school, I read a short story by W. Somerset Maugham and loved it and went to library and checked out The Razor's Edge by Maugham. Another teacher was talking to the Librarian as I was checking out and grabbed it from me and told me that I should not be reading this book. The librarian took it from he, handed it back to me , looked at the teacher and said, "There are only two kinds of books, well written and poorly written and she has chosen a well written book by a distinguished author. There may be subject matter that she may not understand but it is still a good book and there is no reason to stop her from reading it."

She was right. At 13, I didn't understand all of the subject matter and I read it again when I was 30 when I did understand all the subject matter.

I introduced my children to Maugham with a paperback of all his short stories on their 13th birthday.
My favorite of his short stories is "The Verger."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have no idea of the context, OP, to the point that I doubt you are even a parent. Maybe the kid needed a book for a school book report and the teachers had stipulated a number of pages, or a genre, or no graphic novels. Librarians are basically worthless at helping with this stuff so it is up to the parent. I told this story before but I had a list of books for my 10 year old that I couldn’t find, and the librarian informed me that they try to only stock 21st century books but I could special order “those old books” if I really wanted them.

You have a very different experience of librarians. We've found them to be incredibly helpful and enthusiastic about helping kids find appropriate books. But your first point is right--"not appropriate" could mean that the book doesn't fit the assignment parameters.

I’m honestly glad you had a better experience! Ten years ago we had a lovely staff of children’s librarians. I don’t know what happened but they have all been replaced with a brigade of pierced tattooed 20 somethings adorned with political pins who don’t seem particularly interested in children. One didn’t know who Roald Dahl was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have no idea of the context, OP, to the point that I doubt you are even a parent. Maybe the kid needed a book for a school book report and the teachers had stipulated a number of pages, or a genre, or no graphic novels. Librarians are basically worthless at helping with this stuff so it is up to the parent. I told this story before but I had a list of books for my 10 year old that I couldn’t find, and the librarian informed me that they try to only stock 21st century books but I could special order “those old books” if I really wanted them.

You have a very different experience of librarians. We've found them to be incredibly helpful and enthusiastic about helping kids find appropriate books. But your first point is right--"not appropriate" could mean that the book doesn't fit the assignment parameters.

I’m honestly glad you had a better experience! Ten years ago we had a lovely staff of children’s librarians. I don’t know what happened but they have all been replaced with a brigade of pierced tattooed 20 somethings adorned with political pins who don’t seem particularly interested in children. One didn’t know who Roald Dahl was.

Ok, I thought maybe it was just our local library. What is happening?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

When I was in 8th grade at a small private boarding school, I read a short story by W. Somerset Maugham and loved it and went to library and checked out The Razor's Edge by Maugham. Another teacher was talking to the Librarian as I was checking out and grabbed it from me and told me that I should not be reading this book. The librarian took it from he, handed it back to me , looked at the teacher and said, "There are only two kinds of books, well written and poorly written and she has chosen a well written book by a distinguished author. There may be subject matter that she may not understand but it is still a good book and there is no reason to stop her from reading it."

She was right. At 13, I didn't understand all of the subject matter and I read it again when I was 30 when I did understand all the subject matter.

I introduced my children to Maugham with a paperback of all his short stories on their 13th birthday.
My favorite of his short stories is "The Verger."

I think most of us are restricting our children’s access to porn, not well-written material with complex themes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this really that confusing, OP? Do you not read? There are lots of topics young kids are not mature enough for, regardless of reading level. There are lots of topics that may be perfectly fine for most kids, but for that kid, because of their specific developmental stage or life experiences, would find upsetting or inappropriate.

I never thought I would be the parent who banned Garfield but it turns out John spends a lot of time dieting and my 8 year old for whatever reason latched onto that and suddenly every meal was a conversation about counting calories and what the scale is going to look like tomorrow. So I took away Garfield for a little while. I'm sure lots of parents were judging me in the library when I had to keep telling him no on Garfield but they don't have to eat breakfast with us.

ITA agree with you and also this is an hilarious story. I had completely forgotten that Jon was a dieter and used to talk about "the scale" a lot (though to be fair, I think Garfield used to counterbalance this approach by making fun of him and eating lasagna in front of him, so it's a bit vague where the cartoon comes down on weight loss). But this is a perfect example of why a parent is usually better qualified to make choices about what their kid should be reading or exposed to than other people, and don't need to be second guessed constantly. I would also be alarmed if my 8 yr old was getting acclimated to diet culture from old Garfield cartoons and that's a perfectly good reason to move him away from that content.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

When I was in 8th grade at a small private boarding school, I read a short story by W. Somerset Maugham and loved it and went to library and checked out The Razor's Edge by Maugham. Another teacher was talking to the Librarian as I was checking out and grabbed it from me and told me that I should not be reading this book. The librarian took it from he, handed it back to me , looked at the teacher and said, "There are only two kinds of books, well written and poorly written and she has chosen a well written book by a distinguished author. There may be subject matter that she may not understand but it is still a good book and there is no reason to stop her from reading it."

She was right. At 13, I didn't understand all of the subject matter and I read it again when I was 30 when I did understand all the subject matter.

I introduced my children to Maugham with a paperback of all his short stories on their 13th birthday.
My favorite of his short stories is "The Verger."

I think most of us are restricting our children’s access to porn, not well-written material with complex themes.

+1 And some of us are restricting our kids' access to poorly written material about vapid, simple themes. A lot of books geared toward tweens are poorly written and focused on appearances and being popular. When a preview material for my DD, this stuff goes in the "no" pile because there are so many better options out there and I don't want to reinforce those toxic ideas for her. I'm fine with books about friendship and typical tween/teen problems, but it needs to be well written and have some substance to it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

When I was in 8th grade at a small private boarding school, I read a short story by W. Somerset Maugham and loved it and went to library and checked out The Razor's Edge by Maugham. Another teacher was talking to the Librarian as I was checking out and grabbed it from me and told me that I should not be reading this book. The librarian took it from he, handed it back to me , looked at the teacher and said, "There are only two kinds of books, well written and poorly written and she has chosen a well written book by a distinguished author. There may be subject matter that she may not understand but it is still a good book and there is no reason to stop her from reading it."

She was right. At 13, I didn't understand all of the subject matter and I read it again when I was 30 when I did understand all the subject matter.

I introduced my children to Maugham with a paperback of all his short stories on their 13th birthday.
My favorite of his short stories is "The Verger."

I think most of us are restricting our children’s access to porn, not well-written material with complex themes.

It’s not just porn. Books geared toward middle school kids on up can have a lot of inappropriate content IMO. In our library’s newsletter, the middle school “librarian recommendation” section featured a book about a teen gamer boy that befriended another gamer boy online through a game and they decided to meet in real life in secret and developed into more than friendship. Sorry, but WHY would anyone be encouraging kids to interact with online strangers and even worse, meet up with them. I wish I were making this up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this really that confusing, OP? Do you not read? There are lots of topics young kids are not mature enough for, regardless of reading level. There are lots of topics that may be perfectly fine for most kids, but for that kid, because of their specific developmental stage or life experiences, would find upsetting or inappropriate.

I never thought I would be the parent who banned Garfield but it turns out John spends a lot of time dieting and my 8 year old for whatever reason latched onto that and suddenly every meal was a conversation about counting calories and what the scale is going to look like tomorrow. So I took away Garfield for a little while. I'm sure lots of parents were judging me in the library when I had to keep telling him no on Garfield but they don't have to eat breakfast with us.

ITA agree with you and also this is an hilarious story. I had completely forgotten that Jon was a dieter and used to talk about "the scale" a lot (though to be fair, I think Garfield used to counterbalance this approach by making fun of him and eating lasagna in front of him, so it's a bit vague where the cartoon comes down on weight loss). But this is a perfect example of why a parent is usually better qualified to make choices about what their kid should be reading or exposed to than other people, and don't need to be second guessed constantly. I would also be alarmed if my 8 yr old was getting acclimated to diet culture from old Garfield cartoons and that's a perfectly good reason to move him away from that content.

I totally forgot about this!! Jon would be cancelled now.