Censorship and Parenting (what I plan to do)

[azurelunatic]

From a discussion over in ataniell93's neck of the woods, on what an actual honest-to-gods parent thinks of the whole fandom_scruples thing, and what their plans or practices for censoring or monitoring their kid's internet experience is:

Little Fayoumis is not really online much, and he's not fully reading yet. He's on one and two syllable words, at grade level with first grade. As such, lots of innuendo goes ZIP over his head. I was reading all kinds of stuff when I was a kid, and it does very much go over the head. I went back and re-read some of the Star Trek that I'd been reading, and I was shocked, et cetera, that I'd been reading it, because it was so very racy.

We've explained that we need to watch any R-rated movies *first*, to see why they get the R rating, and then we can decide whether it's appropriate for him to watch them or not. We look at scary, gross, and confusing. He gets to watch most of Matrix: Reloaded; we'll have him leave the room for the Trinity/Neo sex, and have him not watch the cheesecake bit.

He gets to watch Strongbad (http://www.homestarrunner.com/) and some South Park. He does *not* get to watch Happy Tree Friends (http://www.happytreefriends.com/); he does get to play Mortal Kombat.

My parents requested that I please not read any Sweet Valley High books, because they were trash. (Every now and then, I would sneak a few home from the school library. I don't think they ever found out.) I plan to find some particularly disgusting but harmless series of books to bitch, whine, moan, and complain about ("Oh, god, you're reading that crap? Bleugh.") so he feels like he's getting one over on me. For anything that I have a serious problem about him reading, I will explain carefully to him why I don't think it's a good idea that he be exposed to it at this point in time, and request that he not get into it, but say that if he is exposed to it, that he may and should ask me about the things about it that scared and/or confused him.

When he does get to reading stuff online, I will teach him to look at the ratings and read the summaries first. We're probably going to let him read PG-13 and below stuff, when he gets to reading. If he sees an R-rated or above fic that he really wants to read, he should ask us to read it first and see if we think that it's OK for him to read it. If we don't think it's OK, and he still wants to read it, I'll probably just go through and snip out the way-too-intense bits and replace them with summaries if possible. "There was a lot of kissing and mushy stuff."

I do appreciate it when authors of really interesting stories make it easy on anyone who wants to skip the sex bits, by saying something like "NC-17 rated chapter; $CHARACTER and $CHARACTER have some private time together. Not important to plot. Click here to read their private scene; click here to skip and continue with story."

Comments

[dragontdc.livejournal.com]

Not to criticize, but more to bring up the topic...

I noticed that the majority of the examples of censored material were sexually oriented. I never took you for someone who would consider sexuality "bad" in and of itself, nor do I think you'd perpetuate the (in my opinion unhealthy) practice of hiding a child from human sexuality until they build all kinds of unrealistic assumptions about it. So on what basis is sex (in media) taboo in your household? And is there an age at which it becomes more acceptable, and how does one determine that? As a (hopefully someday) future parent, I'm interested in opinions and ideas.

[azurelunatic]

His mom and I have different opinions on sex. She's OK with more violence than she is sex, and she rules the roost.

[azurelunatic]

Generally, kissing's all right, but most visibly naked people in sexual situations aren't. And animated intercourse is also out.

I keep coming back to this with more feedback...

[azurelunatic]

There's no hard and fast age line, which is where a lot of people make that mistake.

He still yells bloody murder when accused of kissing a girl. When kissing someone in context other than kissing parents goodnight starts looking more acceptable to him, that's probably when the more advanced stuff should start to be made accessable.

[sithjawa.livejournal.com]

Heh. I definitely think that if parents approve of some things a kid does and disapprove of others, it's nice. Like, after a certain age, my mom disapproved of everything I did, so I just hid quietly, disobeyed her, and was depressed about it. If she'd approved of everything I did, I probably would have gotten all rebellious and done all sorts of things in attempt to freak her out. A range would have been nice. Also helps you think of parent as a person, with, y'know, *tastes*.

[azurelunatic]

I don't like Barney, and I don't, I absolutely do NOT, like Spongebob Squareass. And I make my displeasure known. Spongebob promotes idiotic behaviour.

Censoring childrens reading and viewing materials.

[hasfartogo.livejournal.com]

I take my girlfriends kids to a lot of things. Vague Dude had only one bad reaction and I was too selfish to re-act to it properly. Since then I have been more sensitive.

Innocent nudity has never been a problem. Violence sometimes but it was based on personal history. Social conflicts on screen would set Vague Dude off at times.

We watched Lord of the Rings: The Tow Towers with her ten year old girl. She was grossed out by the Orcs eating each other.

"Ew, they're cannibals!"

"You know what that means?"

"Yeah!"

I can't remember what did disturb her but she did not have nightmares.

I think it has to do with who the kids are with and how the adult explains things to the kids. There are somethings they will not see till they are older but on the whole they are well monitored. It's the parents who don't read or watch what they read or watch, or monitor where their kids surf that bother me.

Re: Censoring childrens reading and viewing materials.

[azurelunatic]

Little Fayoumis was scared in Fellowship of the Ring when Saruman was tossing Gandalf around. I don't blame him.

Re: Censoring childrens reading and viewing materials.

[hasfartogo.livejournal.com]

Heck, I was scared when that was happening.

I was most sad when Boromir was killed. Sean Bean was so good in that scene. I get teary every time.

[ruisseau.livejournal.com]

*applauds*

Excellent points and plans! :)