Soap Box

Hmmm... Most of my fiction choices out of the library come from the juvenile section. That keeps me safe from "smutty books". We laugh at Mrs Shin in the Music Man and her fear of "smutty books" but I do have a fear of them. In the Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boon there is a story she relates of going to the city with her father as a child and asking him the question of what "sex sin" is. Carefully her father hands her a heavy suitcase full of his watch repair tools and asks her to carry it. She tries and tells him that it is too heavy for her. He takes the case from her and tells her that there is some knowledge too heavy for a child to carry and if she will trust him he will carry that knowledge until she is ready. I feel the same about what our children are exposed to in the books and stories they read. Books enlarge our view of the world and help us to see things through other peoples eyes and have a better understanding of how others deal with and resolve conflict. They help us to connect, but there are some things I don't think that even adults need to connect with. I know to some that seems naive that we need to face reality, but my reality is pretty nice without smut.

I checked our two children fiction books this week that I would be embarrassed to read to my children because I was uncomfortable reading them myself, in fact one of them I put down. Richard Jennings "Ghost Town", was the one I put down. Looks like a great story but the content is definitely unacceptable for a 56 year old woman. The other was one of the "Alice" series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Wish I could remember the name but the story deals with Alice's fifth grade year of school. Admittedly Naylor knows what fifth grade girls are curious about, but I think a parent should explain the facts of life to their children. A child not ready for this information would truly be taken by surprise. It may be that a particular child needs to have their parent carry that suitcase a little longer. I guess I write because we really need to be aware of what our children are reading. The world can say what it will that children already know this stuff anyway, but... We should do our very best to expose our children to those things that virtuous, lovely, of good report and praiseworthy. The world is already too much with them.