Indeed it is no different from movie ratings. If a movie is rated X then people under a certain age are simply banned from seeing it and that is censorship. Simply declaring censorship to not be censorship does not make it not censorship. If it is the parent who is making the decision for the child then declaring that not to be censorship does not make it not censorship either. There are certainly some decisions that parents or other guardians must make for children. I remember, for example, grabbing a little girl whom I was in charge of and yanking her from the street. She resisted. She stopped resisting when she saw the car that was bearing down on her, but prior to that she had not seen the car and seemed to be resisting me just because I told her to get out of the street. In that case she was making the wrong decision and my decision for her had to overrule her own decision. I might also point out that she was making the wrong decision because of a lack of information. That is, if she had seen the oncoming car she would have most likely made the same decision that I was making for her. There are other decisions that the parents need to stay out of the way of though. Reading is one of the safest activities that there are. Just stop by your local emergency room and ask how frequently they find themselves treating reading related injuries. I will bet you that the rate is very low. Children quite often have entirely different interests from their parents. Parents are likely to think that their children should have certain interests and impose those interests on the child whether the child likes it or not. There could be any number of results and one of them could well be that the child will be even more turned off from the subject than they would if it had not been imposed on them. To not allow a child to pursue one's own interests strikes me as bordering on child abuse itself. Generally, though, there is nothing to worry about anyway. Most children will not understand books meant for adults. What happens when you start reading a book that you do not understand? You get bored with it and put it down. If you are a child you will go back to the children's category and choose books that you will understand and read those. There are, however, some children who will understand books intended for adults. By banning them from choosing those books you are stifling what may turn out to be some really great potential. Again, let us concentrate on helping children make wise decisions where it really matters and get out of their way when it comes to pursuing their own interests.
On 11/11/2012 3:04 AM, Doug Maples wrote:
We've gone down this road before, and probably will again in the future, but I'll have to once again state the obvious. It is the parent's choice how they want to parent and whether or not they want to filter AC books, or not. This is definitely not censorship which implies something cannot be written/broadcast. It simply gives me and other parents the option to choose whether or not questionable reading matter will get into my child's hands without our knowledge. No different from ratings on movies. You certainly cannot argue that is censorship since the child can request it via parent's consent. It simply lets you know what the content is. Reading or watching books or movies, or Internet websites, usually starts innocently for the younger ones, and then curiosity leads them on the path we parents have to decide whether or not we want our child to travel down. Adults are more capable of deciding which direction they want to go. Far too often children will make poor choices that can be harmful. Quite simply, let's just leave some things up to the parents. - Doug To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.
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