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So I'm now halfway on the way to being a librarian. And as I follow the discussion on YALSA-BK, the official main listserv of the Young Adult division of the American Library Association, I'm feeling so frustrated by a few very conservative Christian parents, and so sad for them at the same time. Because only one librarian in the discussion, or maybe two, (out of dozens) seems to have any empathy for the moral and emotional positions of these angry Christian parents.
Apparently some parent named Laurie Taylor is trying to get a whole lot of books she considers filthy removed from the shelves or put somewhere that people would have to request them so no kids could get them accidentally. A number of them are adult titles, like Eric Jerome Dickey's work (very raunchy, but undoubtedly intended for adults).
And I just feel bad for both sides here. Because back in 1920, when "fornication" was a crime in at least 20 states (meaning any sex between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman, both adults) and books like Lady Chatterley's Lover were banned, well, this wouldn't have been an issue would it? Within the memory of this woman who's complaininig's parents, NONE of these books would have been on library shelves.
Were there sleazy mass market novels back then, and burlesque dancers, and prostitutes? Why, sure, but they were probably easier to ignore if you wanted to. And clearly this mom wants to.
On the other hand, am I happy that more intense books are available at the library (not just sleazy ones but morally rather uplifting ones, like Chris Crutcher's books where teens with *hard* lives and temptations towards alcohol/bad sexual encounters struggle to direct their energies towards sports and mutual assistance) (and not just morally uplifting ones but raunchy novels like the latest Laurell K. Hamilton vampire-hunter type book)? Oh yes, I am, cause I like to read these books too.
Here's my sympathy: it is really hard to protect your kid from all the stuff that's out there, and to raise them up right.
Here's why I'm mad: I think a lot of parents who complain about libraries and tv and radio and all corrupting their kids are either a) not willing to spend the time/make the sacrifices needed to protect their kid as they'd like him/her to be protected, b) trying to keep protecting a kid who's of the age where they start needing a little time and space to mess up on their own.
By which I mean:
If your kid is five or seven years old and watching too much racy TV, you have the option to turn the TV off. To unplug it and remove it from your house. My mom did that for two years, and I think it was really beneficial for me. I'm sure it was hard for her, but we all interacted and played and read more because of it, and I was no longer exposed to all the violent cop shows I'd been sucking down like soda through a straw. My mom was never surprised by the contents of books I read as a small kid, because she read them too, helped me pick them out.
On the other hand, if your kid is 12 or 14 years old, it's time for them to start taking baby steps towards intellectual independence. All of the people who were in high school with me and totally protected/controlled by their parents until high school graduation were the biggest partiers/drinkers/messed up ones at college. One poor kid whose mother had stood over him while he did homework for ten years, got to college and failed out in under a year. Part of the process of independence is trying out ideas and moral postures that are different from your parents'.
Just because you are suddenly being vegetarian, or eating meat, or going to church/synagogue/mosque a lot, or refusing to attend services, or being an anarchist punk/conservative republican, or talking about sex all the time, doesn't mean your basic values have changed. Parents often feel very threatened and uncertain during this time, because it is an uncertain time where parental control becomes less consistent. But most of the time, these kids are just working through the problem of how to run their lives. They haven't come to a decision yet. As someone mentioned on the listserv yesterday, reading books about sexually active kids, or drug addicts, or whatever, may be a way for young teenagers to mentally experiment with these extreme changes without personally pursuing them. Which I think would be a good thing.
So I feel really sorry for the anxiety/worry/unhappiness some parents experience when their older children read books they're not sure are "appropriate", but my gut feeling is that if you did your job as a parent when they were littler, if you're open and receptive and there to talk with, then a few risky/raunchy books aren't going to do your kid any moral harm. One librarian even shared a story about a student who checked out a frequently challenged book called "Doing It". The student was from a conservative family and was an abstinence-promiser of some kind. Was the student offended by the book? No, because she said it was a beautiful example of why young girls shouldn't want to have sex - so they wouldn't fall victim to the icky guy types in the book. Our own values don't go away when we read - they inform what we read.
Apparently some parent named Laurie Taylor is trying to get a whole lot of books she considers filthy removed from the shelves or put somewhere that people would have to request them so no kids could get them accidentally. A number of them are adult titles, like Eric Jerome Dickey's work (very raunchy, but undoubtedly intended for adults).
And I just feel bad for both sides here. Because back in 1920, when "fornication" was a crime in at least 20 states (meaning any sex between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman, both adults) and books like Lady Chatterley's Lover were banned, well, this wouldn't have been an issue would it? Within the memory of this woman who's complaininig's parents, NONE of these books would have been on library shelves.
Were there sleazy mass market novels back then, and burlesque dancers, and prostitutes? Why, sure, but they were probably easier to ignore if you wanted to. And clearly this mom wants to.
On the other hand, am I happy that more intense books are available at the library (not just sleazy ones but morally rather uplifting ones, like Chris Crutcher's books where teens with *hard* lives and temptations towards alcohol/bad sexual encounters struggle to direct their energies towards sports and mutual assistance) (and not just morally uplifting ones but raunchy novels like the latest Laurell K. Hamilton vampire-hunter type book)? Oh yes, I am, cause I like to read these books too.
Here's my sympathy: it is really hard to protect your kid from all the stuff that's out there, and to raise them up right.
Here's why I'm mad: I think a lot of parents who complain about libraries and tv and radio and all corrupting their kids are either a) not willing to spend the time/make the sacrifices needed to protect their kid as they'd like him/her to be protected, b) trying to keep protecting a kid who's of the age where they start needing a little time and space to mess up on their own.
By which I mean:
If your kid is five or seven years old and watching too much racy TV, you have the option to turn the TV off. To unplug it and remove it from your house. My mom did that for two years, and I think it was really beneficial for me. I'm sure it was hard for her, but we all interacted and played and read more because of it, and I was no longer exposed to all the violent cop shows I'd been sucking down like soda through a straw. My mom was never surprised by the contents of books I read as a small kid, because she read them too, helped me pick them out.
On the other hand, if your kid is 12 or 14 years old, it's time for them to start taking baby steps towards intellectual independence. All of the people who were in high school with me and totally protected/controlled by their parents until high school graduation were the biggest partiers/drinkers/messed up ones at college. One poor kid whose mother had stood over him while he did homework for ten years, got to college and failed out in under a year. Part of the process of independence is trying out ideas and moral postures that are different from your parents'.
Just because you are suddenly being vegetarian, or eating meat, or going to church/synagogue/mosque a lot, or refusing to attend services, or being an anarchist punk/conservative republican, or talking about sex all the time, doesn't mean your basic values have changed. Parents often feel very threatened and uncertain during this time, because it is an uncertain time where parental control becomes less consistent. But most of the time, these kids are just working through the problem of how to run their lives. They haven't come to a decision yet. As someone mentioned on the listserv yesterday, reading books about sexually active kids, or drug addicts, or whatever, may be a way for young teenagers to mentally experiment with these extreme changes without personally pursuing them. Which I think would be a good thing.
So I feel really sorry for the anxiety/worry/unhappiness some parents experience when their older children read books they're not sure are "appropriate", but my gut feeling is that if you did your job as a parent when they were littler, if you're open and receptive and there to talk with, then a few risky/raunchy books aren't going to do your kid any moral harm. One librarian even shared a story about a student who checked out a frequently challenged book called "Doing It". The student was from a conservative family and was an abstinence-promiser of some kind. Was the student offended by the book? No, because she said it was a beautiful example of why young girls shouldn't want to have sex - so they wouldn't fall victim to the icky guy types in the book. Our own values don't go away when we read - they inform what we read.
