Did Your Parents Censor Your Reading Material?

[Lissa]

As a child, I was allowed to read whatever I wished. My parents had the theory that no knowledge could be bad, and you could learn something from any book. Never did they forbid me to read any book, no matter how "mature" the subject matter.

I've talked to many people, most recently a 14-year-old girl in a bookstore who told me that her parents wouldn't allow her to read "grown-up" books, and even forbid her from reading some children's books which they considered to "racy."

Most commonly, it seems, book censorship is done for religious reasons, such as a Christian parent forbidding their child to read Harry Potter. But I've also seen many non-religious parents censor their child's reading material for various reasons.

What about you? Did your parents allow you to read whatever you wanted, or did they put restrictions on your books? If so, why, and as a parent, do you intend to do the same?

[Larz]

My parents never censored my reading material, except for the nudie mages, but thats a different story. They just believed that reading anything would be better than watching tv or playing video games.

[Jonathan Chance]

Nope, mom handed me 'Tropic of Cancer' at age 10.

Took me years to recover.

[Melandry]

The only time I can remember my parents taking a book away from me, I was 8 and I had just checked "Are You There God, It's Me Margaret" out of the library. Just as well, I really wasn't enjoying it much, as I remember.

What my parents did censor was TV and movies. Still do, and I'm 23...

[Speaker for the Dead]

It took me years to realize how lewd some of the stuff I was reading actually was. If I read it now, it would seem tame, of course, but for a 10 year old, it was pretty racy.

[look!ninjas]

I read essentially anything I could. I think that's a lot better way of growing up than - "No, you can't read that book. Here, play Street Fighter instead." (Hmm... showing my age again)

[Doomtrain]

My mom didn't even know what I was reading, half the time, I read whatever I wanted.

[Lsura]

Not that I'm aware of. I do have a vague memory of my mother asking me if I had a copy of My Darling, My Hamburger at one point, but that was well after I'd read the book, so I said yes.


There was never anything stated that I couldn't read - but I don't think my mother was usually aware of what I was reading (like... Clan of the Cave Bear somewhere around 10).

[Omorka]

Somewhere around age 11, my parents actually had a fairly severe argument about whether they would censor what I checked out of the library or not. I had been going through the library's section on ghosts, haunted houses, ESP, etc. (pretty standard for a curious 11-year-old), and my father had some weird objection that this stuff was Satanic. My mother, who is usually much more strictly religious, argued quite strongly that I would figure out the books were hogwash on my own (I did, although not in the way she expected) and that it would be an exercise in critical thinking on my part - that they would be weakening a growing experience for me if they interfered. The subject never came up again after that, partially because I switched to the religions section and partly because I began smuggling the really heretical stuff home hidden in the middle of a pile of SF/Fantasy - which, however heretical or raunchy, my parents never objected to because, despite being on the fundie side, they had been serious hardcore SF geeks in college.

Go fig. *shrug*

[DrFidelius]

My daughters do not read as wide a variety of books as I think they should. I can't even get the twelve-year-old to put down Harry Potter to read The Mists of Avalon.

[amarinth]

Yes, but not for maturity or content, but for "quality."

If they thought the book was trash, or pulp, or poorly written, (or it looked as though it may be so) I wasn't allowed to read it and had to hide it from them. (with us, it wasn't as though if they forbade books we were going to stop reading them, or they had to beg us to read... it was much more likely to be the opposite) But well-written, classical sex and violence were perfectly ok.

If I ever have kids, will I do the same? I'm not sure.

[dwyr]

Nope. The only restriction was that we couldn't handle the more expensive hardcover volumes without asking first and until we had shown we could treat a book properly.

[LifeOnWry]

My reading was never really restricted, until my Mom came home from work one day when I was about ten and I asked her what "mutual masturbation" was. I'd found this book, you see, and it was called "Games Children Play." I'd no idea it was a psychology book when I found it on her nightstand, and by the time I figured out what it was, I was too interested in what it said to put it down. Mom's only restriction was that I please ASK her before I went rummaging around in her room looking for reading material. Unfortunately, I never found anything good in there anyway after that :)

I do restrict my daughter's reading, to a point. There was a big stink raised at our local junior high school about a Judy Blume book called "Forever." I rode my high horse over to the public library, checked out a copy, and read it. I then determined that it was more explicit than I'd suspected, and I told her she could read it when she was in high school.

I don't believe in public censorship, but I do retain the right not to expose my daughter to stuff I know she's not ready for, or stuff I know to be inaccurate or feel to be unnecessarily lascivious on sexual matters. So, I generally read (or at the very least, skim) most of the books she brings home.

[cleops]

I had Baldwin's Another Country expropriated from me when I was 11 or 12. I got a hold of it because of the sex parts, and it was taken from for that reason. What I should have had expropriated from me was Catcher in the Rye, the reading of which just made my bad attitude even worse, and I am still dealing with the consequences 35 down the road. The power of litratchah!!

[Eva Luna]

Quite the opposite, but then I don't remember reading anything terribly graphic or age-inappropriate, either in terms of sexual or violent content. In fact, one day the branch librarian around the corner from our house refused to let me check out an Agatha Christie mystery, of all things (I think I was 10 or 11 years old), because it was in the "adult" section. When I came home and complained to Mom, she dragged me back to the library and proceeded to ream out the librarian in front of me for censorship.

What Mom didn't know was when my sister snuck Mom's copy of The Joy of Sex over to our next door neighbor's house. I remember looking at it and being really, really confused about why the people in the drawings were doing some of that stuff.

[burundi]

I was allowed to read whatever I wanted. It didn't scar me at all. I do remember reading The Color Purple in 5th grade and being utterly mystified by it. It made much more sense when I read it a couple of years ago.

[presidebt]

I was lucky, nobody cared as long as I kept myself occupied.

I tend to take the liberal approach when it comes to my own daughter. Because I'm avid reader, she's had plenty of age appropriate books in the house since before she was born. I was a little disappointed at first that she wasn't the reader I was. She reads and enjoys it well enough, but she isn't consumed with it the way I was. Then I realized that's a good thing. I was reading for escape most often, and she seems to be a happy, social child, so maybe she doesn't need it. I'm okay with that.

Cool thread Lissa. :)

[DreadCthulhu]

My parents didn't censor anything that I read during childhood- heck, my father gave me his playboy collection when I was 13.

[Alear]

I had the great fortune to have a librarian as a mother. By age 10, she was worried that I had read out the children's books.
Alright, I needed to read, not wanted, *needed*, give some adult books please.
She was ok with that, and gave me some adult books, nothing risque, coz she read everything, and handed me the books that were she deemed appropriate.
Note that at the time there were mountains of books in our house.
I was OK, I'll read what you are not allowing me to read, not all that hard to sneak one. One day, on the way to school, I was carrying Wambaugh's "Blue Knight". Not great literature, but verboten nonetheless.
A very Catholic gradeschool, btw.
My father, who then and later gave us boys a very long leash, saw that, and said "Alear, what have you got there?"
I showed him.
Wiser he is in retrospect than I thought at the time, he said, "You can read that, but don't bring it into school." I left the book in the car, and spent the whole day with little to read other than what textbooks they had.
Was I censored? Probably. Was it just? Yes.

[wdcsmwscaa]

Nope!

I'm given free reign on what I read. I'd venture to say I'm a sight more well read than my parents, and they seem to realize that. They did censor movies, once. The Interview with the Vampire, when it first came out. Sort of glad they did..

Hey, wait, I lied. When the book form of Girl, Interrupted came out after the movie, I wasn't allowed to read it. Mind you, the moment I was told that I read it. I don't see why, really. She may have thought I was of the 'impressionable' sort, though I'm sure (I hope) she knows better.

[Fibber McGee]

From about age 6 to age 13 I read mostly comics, school having beaten my love for reading out of me.

It came back with a vengence in High School though. My parents simply seemed happy to see me reading and never took issue with anything I read. During this period I mostly read Stephen King and like authors. It wasn't until later that my tastes expanded to where they are now.

When I was 8 or 9 my mother decided I was old enough to watch R rated movies. (We had cable by this point anyway, so it wasn't like she could stop me.) I'm sure the same is true about books. If I'd been reading anything other than Archie and Spider-Man at that point, I'm sure that once she figured I was old enough not to understand what I was reading, she'd let me read whatever I wanted with her blessing.

[gobear]

Gotta tell ya, as awful as my childhood was, the one bright spot was that my mom stood up for me against a tyrannical librarian. When I was 11, the movie, The Exorcist had come out and I was naturally eager to read the book the movie was based on, especially since there was no way I would ever be allowed to see it. The librarian at our local branch, who had a problem with me checking books out of the adult section anyway, refused to let me check it out. I told my mother what had happened, and she went down to the library and explained to the librarian that if I was old enough to understand the book, I was old enough to read it.

[Alias]

NEVER. My television and movies were censored heavily, but never my reading. I remember reading Anne Rice's erotica novels when I was in junior high, and being totally shocked that such things could be purchased at Walden Books.

[LurkMeister]

My parents never really cared what books I read. I did most of my reading out of the library, and I don't remember being limited to the children's section. My dad did not approve of superhero comic books, IIRC because they were "unrealistic," so I wasn't allowed to waste my money on them. Fortunately one of my cousins did not suffer from this restriction, so whenever we visited I would devour his collection.

[ITR champion]

Once when I was at the library I tried to check out Dolores Claireborne, by Stephen King, but my father read the back jacket description and decided that I shouldn't be allowed to read it. This probably happened when I was in seventh grade. After that, I only went to the library by myself. But I've still never gotten around to reading Dolores Claireborne.

[fizgig]

No censorship here. I generally went to the library on my own and read whatever I liked. However, I don't recall any of it being too racy anyways. I only checked non-fiction out of the adult section at the library, and read age-appropriate fiction, like the Laura Ingalls Wilder and Margeurite Henry books.

[ElwoodCuse]

Not a chance. My dad gave me a hugh stack of MAD Magazines and even some National Lampoons when I was but a lad.

[Kat]

My mother never cared what I read, as long as I was reading. I used to check out a dozen books from the library, read them all and return them the next day to get another batch. When I ran out of books, I'd raid my mother's romance novels. When I was tall enough to reach them, I'd borrow the classic hardcover novels that she kept on the top shelf. (I was going to say here "Why I was allowed access to the romances before the classics, I don't know." but it was probably because the romances were cheap paperbacks, plus the fact that my older sisters were romance fiends and my mother might not have even thought I'd be interested in the classics.)

My father used to (and still does) hassle me about reading "smut books"--which is any book I read that was not for school, not just the aforementioned romances--but he never took any of them away from me.

[cankerist]

Aside from making the occasional snide remark on our (lack of) taste, my parents didn’t take any action to direct what we read. With 4 older idiosyncratic sibs I had access to a huge range of books and by third or fourth grade I was alternating between “Biggles” one day and Borges’ “Labyrinths” the next (admittedly Biggles was mostly lost on me at that age):)

My school on the other hand did supervise what I read. They exempted me from participating in English class and I could just sit there and read so long as the material was approved by them first. When I brought “A Clockwork Orange” they strongly counselled me to leave that until I was older. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I’d already read the American version. Oh, and they also confiscated my sister’s copy of “The Kama Sutra of Vatsayayana”. Jesuits! (I hope it got one of them off, hehehe)

[Shalmanese]

My parents didn't even know what I was reading.

[Angel of the Lord]

The only time that my parents ever told me not to read something was when I was seven. I had gotten this one big red medical book off of the shelf at my house--I think it was the AMA Family Medical Guide--and started reading it. As a result, I began to start conversations at the dinner table about things I read in the book.

Believe me, starting a conversation about severe impetigo while your parents are trying to eat without projectile vomiting is Not A Good Idea.

After that, they took the book away from me, because they thought I was getting way to fascinated with the word of medicine. In addition to these fun and productive dinner conversations, I had also started diagnosing the elderly members of my family with various illnesses, thereby freaking myself and said elderly relatives out.

Yeah, I was a really *fun* kid...

[elfje]

My mother is an avid reader, and I grew up in a house full of books. A lot of her academic books, too (she's a teacher, Latin and Greek), which were sometimes very interesting (I know al about Roman and Greek Mythology, now :) ).
She never censored my books, even gave me quite explicit books on sexuality, menstrual cycles, all that stuff.

[Fern Forest]

Nope. And I'm positive they would not have even had I had desire to read more adult material. Lewd and overly explicit things generally don't appeal to me at all.

[Walloon]

Mom bought me an issue of National Lampoon when I was twelve.

[Morgainelf]

Originally posted by DrFidelius
My daughters do not read as wide a variety of books as I think they should. I can't even get the twelve-year-old to put down Harry Potter to read The Mists of Avalon.

Once she reads Mists she'll wonder what she ever say in Mr. Potter! Seriously though, I don't think at 12 that I would have "gotten" the main plot point of Mists, but it would have turned me onto Wicca much sooner.

The only books my parents censored were the adult Harlequin and Silhouette romances. I could read any "adult" literature I wanted, but not the trashy romance novels. That didn't stop me from reading every "First Love by Silhouette" novel that I could get my hands on. Not to mention a host of Judy Blume and Stephen King novels that I'm sure were much more graphic than any trashy romance.

[Loneraven]

Never. No censorship in this house. My family let me read whatever, because, as my father puts it, "I trust your taste."

[S or L]

My parents never did but I had a teacher once who talked me out of buying "The Naked Ape" at a school book fair.
I thought it was because it had the word naked in the title, but it turned out he objected to it because it promoted Darwinism.

[Bryan Ekers]

My parents were too ashamed to teach me to read. I had to learn on the streets.

[kittenblue]

My parents never censored anything I read, and my brother (nine years older) placed himself in charge of my literary education. I guess he felt he had failed with my sister, who really liked the "sweeping family epic romances" category. So he would hand me books to read. If you think a steady diet of Nero Wolfe and Doc Savage doesn't warp a girl, think again.

After years of reading everything he handed me, my mom finally objected to one of the books he gave me to read on a long car vacation....Catch-22. She didn't know what it was about, but she decided I should wait a few years for that one (I think I was 14 at the time). So I read the other book he had given me...Desmond Morris' "The Naked Ape". Yep, Mom was pretty clueless.

I still haven't read Catch-22. I'm now 46. Think she'll let me now?

[gwendee]

I think there's a difference between censorship and guidance. My mother never told me outright that I couldn't read a particular book but there were times when she said I should wait 'til I was older. In most cases I think she made good calls.

[Governor Quinn]

I never had my reading material censored by my parents, thought that, in large part, is due to the fact that I never bothered to get anything that offended them.

[Kyla]

I was never censored. My parents (okay, my dad) occasionally teased me about my reading material - when I was thirteen or so, I started a phase of reading lots of trashy scifi and fantasy, and my dad would make fun of the garish covers. But they never tried to stop me from reading anything. Although Dad did try to encourage me to read better stuff by buying me Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut books. (Thanks, Dad!)

[JessEnigma]

My parents only truly censored my reading once that I can recall. I was about 7 or 8 and a big trivia book buff, so I was reading whatever trivia books I could find in the house. They confiscated my dad's copy of More of the Straight Dope because they didn't think I was old enough for it. I found it again when I was 13 and it was deemed okay then. (This amuses me immensely...bet I wouldn't be here on the boards if they'd just let me read it to start off with...talk about building curiosity)

Other than that, they didn't really care what I was reading. My mom did occasionally threaten to take away book privileges if I didn't bring home something from the library with a bit more literary merit, but she never followed through. My parents trusted me a great deal, but there's also the fact that there was practically no way for me to get my hands on racy material and I wouldn't've read it anyway.

[Guinastasia]

Originally posted by gwendee
I think there's a difference between censorship and guidance. My mother never told me outright that I couldn't read a particular book but there were times when she said I should wait 'til I was older. In most cases I think she made good calls.

Same here. She made me wait until I was 12 until I was allowed to read Flowers in the Attic and wouldn't let my sister, who was 11 at the time, read Stephen King's IT until she was older. (Mostly because of the extremely vulgar language).

Although I DO remember when I was eight years old, I found a book on human sexuality in her room. She caught me reading it and put it away. (Probably better, it was a little too mature for me).

My sister and I recently found that book under my dad's dresser. Hehehehehe...


Oh, and I HATED The Mists of Avalon.

[Davidbw1]

Yes and no.
No in that if there was anything they knew was explicit, they'd probally not let me read it.
But in 4th grade, my favorite book was Flowers for Algernon and my dad gave me the Chung Kuo series in middle school (lots of explicit and sex...S&M...you name it)

[MusicJunkie]

My mother tried to but my father was against any form of reading censorship so I ended up reading whatever I wanted. After a while she gave up. The only one I never managed to read was one about the mystical powers of pendulums that she took away because it was trash and then gave back to the owner. My question is, if it was trash, why was she reading it anyway?

Probably better I never read it though.

[Lissa]

I surprised at the number of responses that indicate that when books were restricted, it was "for the best."

What do you think would have happened to you had you read the forbidden books?

[MusicJunkie]

I would have lost precious time reading about the powers of pendulums and might have wasted it even more by trying it out.

[Purd Werfect]

I think my mom was clueless about what I read, so no, there was no censorship.

I've not yet felt the urge to censor my son's reading, and considering that he's now 13, I probably won't ever find cause to do so.

[clayton_e]

My reading was never censored, I have always STRONGLY fought for freedom of speach (as well as reading) on all types of material.

I have friends who weren't allowed to read or watch a specific thing, such as Rolling Stones or MTV. It didn't do anything but make the children hate the parents, reading whatever you like should be a basic right.

[MaddyStrut]

My parents never restricted my reading, which is surprising because they're both extremely conservative. In fact, when I had just turned 13 my mother recommended Brave New World to me since I was very into science fiction at the time.

My friend and I did find a copy of Joy of Sex hidden in her mother's sock drawer when we were about 9. I remember her mother was very upset. My mother was pretty calm and just asked me what I thought about it. Mom wasn't too concerned about it, probably because I was only 9 and thought it was all really icky.

[Archergal]

My parents never restricted my reading, and were for the most part, unaware of what I did read. That was fine with me!

I did get p*ssed at the high school librarian once when she told me I couldn't check out "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" because it was "too adult" for me. I didn't tell her I'd already read it. I don't think I ever went back to the school library. (I was VERY much at home at the county library!)

I've always read lots of mysteries and science fiction. The one confusing book I hit was "The Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison. I was very confused when I read it, cuz I was thinking of the Invisible Man movies. :smack:

I figured it out when I was older.

[The_Peyote_Coyote]

My mother censored my reading a bit in junior high, mainly to see that I wasn't reading anything racy. However, I didn't and don't feel deprived. She gave me copies of Phillip Jose Farmer's The Maker of Universes and Doc Savage novels to read, and didn't object to my reading Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Andre Norton, Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man, H.P. Lovecraft, Mark Twain, and Edgar Allen Poe..

[Gr8Kat]

My reading was never censored. Movies and premium cable channels were heavily monitored, though network TV wasn't. I guess my parents thought that visualizing sex and violence wasn't as bad as actually watching it.

[Guinastasia]

Originally posted by Lissa
I surprised at the number of responses that indicate that when books were restricted, it was "for the best."

What do you think would have happened to you had you read the forbidden books?

Mostly it was just about them being age appropriate. It wasn't that I was forbidden from reading them at all-just that I had to wait until I was older.

I would not allow a seven year old to read Flowers in the Attic. Sorry.

[AHunter3]

My reading was never censored. I think my Mom was a little uncomfortable when I read books on ESP and shut myself in my closet for a couple hours to "get in touch with my extrasensory sensitivities" as the book recommended :), and both parents conspired to force me to prune my comic book collection a couple times, but that's about it.

[j.c.]

My mother is the kind of very social person who is against reading anything so long as one other person in the building is awake - if there's someone to talk to, you should be talking to them, not hiding yoru nose in a damned book.

She was also picky about what I read, as were most school librarians. Basically, I just went outside to read and read whatever I wanted.

My dad was pro reading, but not around much.

[Infovore]

No censorship here. By the time I was 11 I'd already read quite a few interesting things from my dad's library, including Allan Sherman's "The Rape of the A*P*E*," an autobiography of a Mafia hitman ("Killer" by 'Joey'), a rather explicit book about the Donner Party ("The Ungodly"), "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Sex..." (I was a little young for this one--didn't understand a lot of it, but wasn't prevented from reading it), and a whole slew of Reader's Digest-type medical books, along with "The Godfather," "Helter-Skelter," and "83 Hours Till Dawn" by Barbara Mackle (which gave me the serious heebie-jeebies for years afterward). I was also allowed to look through my dad's Playboys, which I did and determined they weren't all that interesting (me not being a boy and all). I read all manner of supernatural/horror stuff too. I can't ever remember being told by either parent that there was anything I couldn't read. I'm very grateful to them for that, especially since my mother was very overprotective in other ways (I never got to *go* anywhere, but I could read whatever the heck I wanted. Looking back, it was a reasonable trade.)

[dangermom]

Mom's a librarian, and never censored my reading; she just criticized the more tasteless selections. How could anyone think of picking up those trashy books!?

[Riboflavin]

About the only reading material I was forbidden to read was actual porn; I remember being 12 or so and getting into the Clan of the Cave Bear series (which they talked to me about but didn't forbid me from reading) and occasionally picking up books from their bookshelf. TV/movie blocking was more interesting; there was some age stuff (when we were really young, scary stuff was right out) and they objected to violence without consequences, so The A-Team (people standing around shooting at each other and not getting hurt) was out, but my dad and I stayed up late one night when I was somewhere around 12-14 to watch A Clockwork Orange. And one of my fond memories as a child was when I broke my leg in 5th grade, my parents would wake me up and carry me into the den to watch Monty Python on PBS.

[Lissa]

Originally posted by Guinastasia
I would not allow a seven year old to read Flowers in the Attic. Sorry.

I did. :D Actually, I think I might have been a bit younger. It was the first adult novel that I read.

Didn't understand it, but read it I did.

[Giselle]

I'd say I'm mostly uncensored in what I read.

My dad did get a little nervous when I started reading the Anita Blake books, but my dad gets a little nervous about a lot of things. My parents have actually been extremely supportive of me in my quest to read as many banned books as I can.

[herwono]

When my mum found my romance novels she threw them into the garbage bin. Not because of the sex-scenes though (I don't think she realises they have sex-scenes, and I'm not about to tell her). She thinks the novels give me an unrealistic view of life.

<shrugs>

I just keep my novels hidden now.

[FriarTed]

heck, in 1972 I was regailing my fellow fifth-graders with the exploits of Vlad Dracula, Peter Kurten, Fritz Haarman and Elizabeth Bathory (which I pronounced as BaTHORNy until two years ago when a 20-yr old friend corrected me- I MISPRONOUNCED IT FOR ALMOST THIRTY YEARS AND NO ONE EVER CORRECTED ME TILL THEN!).

I wasn't censored as much as I should have been.

[Badtz Maru]

They attempted to. When Vonnegut's 'Galapagos' came out they bought it for me, but they told me they would have to read through it first, and then the book disappeared from sight for a few years, and I forgot about it until I found it later.

That's the only time I can remember that they attempted to censor my reading materials (aside from hiding the Playboys, when I found them I assumed they were left by the house's previous owner because my Dad would NEVER read dirty magazines). What's odd is that long before 'Galapagos', I was allowed to read other books that had explicit sex in them, like 'Ringworld' or 'When Harley was One'.

[Darkrabbit]

My reading was never censored. My dad is a big book-a-holic and enjoys reading everything (sci fi in particular). There was always reading material all around the house.

One distinct 'reading' memory from my youth was hearing from a friend in the 8th grade of how he was punished because he was reading Edgar Allen Poe. Heck, I read nearly everything EAP ever wrote in the fifth grade!

[Ethilrist]

No, but my Mom did keep the family bible with the Oz books and other fantasy novels...

[Chronos]

The only times my Mom ever took a book away from me, was when I hadn't given her a chance to finish it first. Not that I was awaiting parental approval, but that she wanted to read it, too. If we had twwo copies, there wasn't a problem. Sometimes I also had to finish my homework before being allowed to read, but I became quite adept at palming and stashing books so that she wouldn't realize I was avoiding work. In retrospect, I think she probably knew, but didn't want to discourage me.

TV and movies were a different story. We hardly saw any movies at all, and we weren't allowed any TV show until after Mom had seen it and approved it. Mostly, we weren't allowed to watch vigilante-action shows (except MacGuyver), or scary stuff. I think I was about 8 years old before I knew that there were any TV stations other than PBS.

[Lissa]

Originally posted by FriarTed
heck, in 1972 I was regailing my fellow fifth-graders with the exploits of Vlad Dracula, Peter Kurten, Fritz Haarman and Elizabeth Bathory (which I pronounced as BaTHORNy until two years ago when a 20-yr old friend corrected me- I MISPRONOUNCED IT FOR ALMOST THIRTY YEARS AND NO ONE EVER CORRECTED ME TILL THEN!).

I wasn't censored as much as I should have been.

I have the same damn problem!!!

My family are mainly fiction readers, whereas I quickly drifted into non-fiction. We never really discussed what I was reading, so I've got a huge vocabulary of words of which I mangle the pronunciation. My husband gently corrects me on occasion, causing me to shrivel in embarassment. (My major problem is on which syllable to place the accent in a longer word, such as "misanthrope.") I also can't spell my way out of a wet paper bag, but that's another thread.

[Balance]

There was no censorship in my family of rabid bibliophiles. No one even complained when I dragged in a stepladder from the shed to reach the upper shelves (the Nero Wolfe books were there, at a convenient height for my big brother).

[Indygrrl]

I read everything when I was a kid. The library was my favorite place. I don't think it occurred to my mom that I would check out anything offensive. She did think it was strange that I started reading Steven King in 5th grade, but she never took it away.

[sj2]

No, they also took me to see Blue Velvet when I was 12...among the other thrillers like Basic Instinct. I used to read my grandmother's romance novels in grammar school.

[catnoe]

My reading wasn't censored. Dad was a reader and Mom wanted to be but was a bit dyslexsic (is that how it's spelled?). She used to take us to the library once a week in the summer.
I had a brother who was four years older (and 2 younger sisters) and I read everything he did as soon as he put the book down. We were all reading a bit ahead of our age group. Didn't read romance/bodice-rippers except when baby-sitting and they were in the house. The one time I brought one in our house (I was about 13) Dad took it from me and said I could read it after I'd read all the Louis L'Amour's in the basement. He considered the romance novels of that sort to be garbage.

By the time I was 13 I had already read Hermann Hesse and Ayn Rand and pretty much everything in the school library. Did a book report on Ayn Rand's 'Anthem' in the 9th grade. I read Solzhenitsyn's 'Cancer Ward' and 'The Gulag Archipelago' when I was 15 because a favorite 'genius' uncle was reading them.

Oddly, I didn't read a lot of the 'classics' till I was out of school. I did read the ones the class was suppose to be reading. A favorite incident was in my junior year and we were suppose to read 'The Scarlett Letter'. The teacher wanted to know who had read the book and who read the 'Cliff notes' so she put questions on the test that weren't covered in the condensed version, I was one of only a few who actually read the book.

I remember being pissed when it took me a week to read 'Gone with the Wind' when I was 12.

But no, reading was not censored in our house, amount of time spent in front of the TV was. My sisters and I had 4 1/2 hours of TV time between us Monday through Friday (mind you this is the early to mid 70's). No Saturday morning cartoons till chores were done.

[Theom]

When I was 13 my mother requested I didn't read Rising Sun by Michael Chriton (sorry I really can't remember how you spell it) but that was about the only censorship thing.
My friend was banned from reading the Adrian Mole books. We were eight at the time and I remember being confused as to why... I thought when Nigel Formed the Gay club he was just being Happy! Seriously!!!!

Sensoring books is a bit pointless beacause the kids are either going to be too young to understand so it is a moot point regardless or else if they ARE old enough to understand they should have your respect to deal with the content.

[DeVena]

Nope no censoring here - and I read EVERYTHING.

One summer, the parents kidna... umm TOOK us 4 kids across the county in a motorhome. I think there are laws against doing this now. "Look kids! Something fun to do - but they want us to pay. Awwww - Nope. Lets find a park or a campground that's free."

Got a lot of pamphlets and stuff from Hari Krishnas in San Francisco and The Book Of Morman in Utah. And a book called "Unknown but Known" by the medium Arthur Ford from a junk store in Vegas.

I left as a sheltered 12 year old southern baptist kid - I came back VERY confused!

[Deadly Nightlight]

I was never too censorec, but when I reread the book Sybil over and over again, my mom made me read somethign else, I was about 11 then.

My parents really didn't care what I read as long as I got good grades.

[ElJeffe]

I was typically allowed to read whatever I pleased, but there was one incident with a comic book. It was a series called "Faust", and was chock-full of sex, violence, and devil worship. I liked it because the main-character was a bad-ass, and the story was pretty cool. Unfortunately, I was 14 at the time, and this was one seriously explicit comic. I certainly wouldn't have let me read it if I were her.

Anyway, she kinda freaked out and took all of my comics and hid them until she could go though them. Little punk that I was, I hunted them down and took them back (what, like she wouldn't notice? I wasn't too bright back then, I guess), which seriously pissed her off, so she just threw them all out. Bummer, because I had a lot of comics that were worth something, too. Ah, well. Served me right for being a snotty teenager.


Jeff

[Politzania]

I don't recall much censorship but in most cases I don't think they knew what I was into.
For example, I was reading my mom's stash of National Lampoons when in early middle school - don't know if she knew I was reading them or not.

I think I read Forever in 5th grade & Clan of the Cave Bear in 6th or 7th grade.

Also looked thru my uncle's Playboys when no-one was around... :o

[Lizard]

Originally posted by Lissa
I've talked to many people, most recently a 14-year-old girl in a bookstore who told me that her parents wouldn't allow her to read "grown-up" books, and even forbid her from reading some children's books which they considered to "racy."

This was my childhood, almost exactly. In fact, I remember very clearly my mother looking at just the cover of a book on more than one occasion and saying "You're not going to read that garbage."

Why? Who knows. She had all kinds of ultr-conservative ideals, and was something of a control freak to boot. In movies, 100 people could be machine-gunned to death, but if one pair of breasts appeared she would try to cover my eyes. Even into high school!

Since I considered all of this very hypocritical, (Mom had a who stash of soft-core, feminist-style dirty books in the basement) not to mention infuriating, I have no intention of doing this to my own kids. I have no example of how to be this open-minded though, so I just hope I don't make a hash of it.

[milo minderbinder]

I remember being banned from the living room as a kid because my Brother and Sister in Law with whom I lived with at that time wanted to watch an 18 rated movie. Seemingly the use of profane language I heard every day and the usual tits and explosions were too shocking for my pulpy juvenile mind to deal with.

So I sat in my room and read American Psycho instead.

milo

[Guinastasia]

Originally posted by Deadly Nightlight
I was never too censorec, but when I reread the book Sybil over and over again, my mom made me read somethign else, I was about 11 then.

My parents really didn't care what I read as long as I got good grades.


That's how my mom felt about me reading Flowers in the Attic constantly. I was a bit obsessed. She didn't stop me, but she thought I was becoming morbid.


And a few times she would move her cheesy Harlequin type novels because she caught me giggling over the sex parts. She told me to "grow up," and said I had a "dirty mind."

[Biffy the Elephant Shrew]

For a few years in the early-mid '60s I was forbidden to read Mad magazine, which an older cousin had introduced me to at a very early age. I used to buy it all the time on the sly anyway. Eventually my mother caught me with a current issue and made me fess up to my father, who simply said it was okay for me to read it from then on.

[censored]

I am 17, and to my knowledge my choice of reading material was never overtly censored. I am sure, if I had tried to acquire it, that actual porn would be taken away from me. Other than that, it has been pretty much free reign. The only thing now that my mother censors is recruiting material from the Armed Forces. I have found recruiting cards/brochures in the trash that were addressed to me, without they ever passing under my eyes. This annoys me a bit.

My nick is strangely inappropriate ;)

[Lissa]

Originally posted by catnoe
Didn't read romance/bodice-rippers except when baby-sitting and they were in the house. The one time I brought one in our house (I was about 13) Dad took it from me and said I could read it after I'd read all the Louis L'Amour's in the basement. He considered the romance novels of that sort to be garbage.


My well-meaning grandmother used to buy BOXES of those things for me from yard sales. She knew I loved books, so she bought them for me in bulk. Sometimes the boxes were full of gems, other times there were nothing but duds. She still buys books: whenever she's in a store, she'll pick up a book which she thinks I might like. (Sometimes it falls flat, but the thought is always much appreciated.) Especially wonderful is when that store happens to be an antiques store. Oh, I've gotten some wonderful things on those occasions!

When I was a kid, if I asked a question, their response was to take me to the bookstore to get a book on the subject. My grandma also gave me my first Straight Dope book when I was 11, saying that it looked like the kinds of questions I was always asking. I read that thing to tatters.

[summerbreeze]

My parents were readers & I was never censored. Got into Dickens at an early age & my mother suggested we read A Tale of Two Cities together, since I was only 8 or 9 & she didn't want me to dislike the book because I didn't understand it.

I've worked in bookstores here (Bible Belt) & many, many people do censor their children's reading -- Harry Potter especially. Had lots of parents complain about the assigned school-reading. One mother came in with her 11-year old son, who wanted a Harry Potter book. She ranted away about witchcraft, satanism, etc. and bought the poor kid a copy of The Three Little Pigs!

Worst of all were the parents who bitched about assigned reading over the summer -- "Why do they have to go ruining my child's summer making him read?" -- in front of the kid, yet!