Kids, Ive recently argued, should let their they can get their hands on because at least theyre reading. Whats more, theyre loving what theyre reading.
Then I came across a Wall Street Journal article on the trend of disturbingly dark teen lit, with a pulchritude of envelope-pushing, profanity-laced tales about kidnapping, pederasty, beatings, rape, incest, suicide, drug addiction.
Suddenly, I find myself in that uncomfortable parental territory when I question a stance that I held so confidenetly just a few days earlier, when I so easily proselytized free-reading love.
Yet on the rare occasion that I see my 13-year-old son become obsessed with a book – or more often the case – fall in love with a series like post-apocalyptic, teenager-torturing The Hunger Games, I think, “Thats my boy!” As far as I see it, if hes reading, then hes not slaughtering zombies. But after reading the series, is his world-view that much drearier, that much scarier?
When agonizing over parenting, I look to my own mother, a woman with an M.A. in English for whom reading was an obsession. When it came to reading, hers was a radically laissez-faire policy. We three kids could read what we wanted. The end result? Unlike our friends, we didnt run straight for the forbidden and lurid literature. When my nine-year-old friends were hiding copies of Are you There God? Its Me, Margaret under their mattresses so their mother wouldnt confiscate the book and and punish them, Im not even sure I bothered to read it. I remember at that age being enthralled by A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (admittedly with its own disturbing tale of sexual abuse) and The Secret Garden.
When my brother was in sixth grade, his teacher – well call him Mr. Smith – phoned my mother to come in for an emergency parent-teacher conference. Surely, something was gravely amiss, given that my brother was a prize student. The problem? Mr. Smith had caught my brother reading The Catcher in the Rye. He sternly told my mother that this was not appropriate. “Mr. Smith,” she said in so many words, “I dont care if hes reading comic books. I let him read what he wants. How is he going to figure out whats good or bad if he doesnt?”
I get it. The Catcher in the Rye is a universe away from the 2010 Scars about a teens obsessive self-mutilation. Where, though, do we stand with some of “the classics,” serving forth grotesqueries like Ovids Metamorphoses (cannibalism, rape), the Iliad (gruesome battle scenes of eviscerated bodies), the Oedipus myth (incest, patricide), the Orestia (cooking a brothers children and serving them for dinner)?
Im not suggesting its ok for kids to read, say, porn. I believe in creating safe boundaries and limits. And I want my child to have a true childhood. But in the end, if my child is swept up in a book, (almost) any book, so much the better. At least in my book, it’s far better than an equally violent video, online game, or movie – at least he’s reading.
What do you think?
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