Unforgiven Too

Hey, let's not be forgetting good mister Goldmember!

I'd have to call it as I see it, play it by ear. So I didn't put an actual vote in. Some kids can understand and handle things at six when others can't understand or handle them at ten. Didn't Laura Ingalls Wilder write "Some men hadn't the sense at sixty that others had at sixteen"?

But I definitely wouldn't forbid it. Again, forbidden fruit and all that's been mentioned. I've personally seen that happen with both my best friends from high school, who were such good, smart girls--until they got out of high school to college and out of their parents' ever-watchful and dictatorial gaze. I don't think I need to go on.

My parents censored me carefully as a small child, not considering it a task for other people to raise their own kids, and as I grew older and older, they gradually opened the box, starting from day one. So by the time I was fifteen, I was well on my way to learning who I was on my own. By that time, one friend in particular was forbidden to read Stephen King, though she wanted to, but was terrified to borrow any of the books from me lest the vice-principal tell her mother. I still shudder at her paranoia. I couldn't imagine having such a mother, or being so afraid of her.

Each and every one of us kids in my family was allowed at sixteen to decide whether to go to church, and the decree was not repealed when it turned out that none of us wanted to go. It's still expected we go on Christmas and maybe Easter just to make mother happy though. )

So--I'd play it by ear, not really encouraging it necessarily but not forbidding it, and if they want to see it, I'd probably discuss it with them. Based on the kid and the situation. One mistake I think my mother made was that she assumed all kids are the same, even as she preached that all people are different and have different attitudes and respond differently to different stimuli. (ex.: spanking works for all kids, which is not true, as she never ever taught me I was wrong, just that she was bigger and could hit me, therefore I bided my time until I was big enough to fight back. She would never have made such an all-encompassing assumption about adults, though it has been a fight to get her to even admit the possibility that she could have been wrong about me. Moms, ya know?)

The big tragedy in that was that I was on medication as a child that had the side effect of making me nuts and giving me insomnia, and I didn't even realize that, trusting my mother implicitly and not knowing of the existence of side effects. Mommy says the medicine is good, therefore the medicine is good. So I grew up wondering what was wrong with me, and once I grew up and found out a few things, I realized that I can't even trust my own mother. Of all people.

:boohoo:

It did contribute in my conscious knowledge of the dangers of blind obedience and trust and yes, even faith. Sorry to go on, but remember I didn't put in a vote! Bottom line, I couldn't possibly say in certain terms when or how or whether before I know the kid in question, as I personally know the consequences of categorizing anyone. And kids are the most overly-categorized category in the world!

crocodile deathroll

Why not. I let him or her read Grimms fairy tales.