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.”
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.
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
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.
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!