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.
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!)
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.
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.
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)
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.
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?
I would have lost precious time reading about the powers of pendulums and might have wasted it even more by trying it out.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 APE*,” 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.)
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!?
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.