No restrictions on reading. I loved reading so much I think Mom realized it would be pure cruelty to put limitations on my reading. She would occasionally comment on whether I should be reading something if I asked her a question with unusual content.
For example, when I read My Girl, within the first ten pages of reading I asked her what ‘‘jaundice’’ and ‘‘tuberculosis’’ meant (the narrator references catching TB from a truck stop toilet.) She would joke, ‘‘Are you sure you’re supposed to be reading that?’’ but she never took it away from me. I also swiped Our Bodies, Ourselves from her bookshelf when I was nine and she didn’t even mention it, other than it ask if I had any questions (I think she was just happy it spared her ‘‘the talk.’’)
For the most part, I wasn’t limited in what I could watch on TV either. Except I was not permitted to watch any shows she thought they were ‘‘weird.’’ Those included Pee Wee’s Playhouse and The Simpsons. Yes, that’s right, it wasn’t until I was on my own that I watched The Simpsons… by then it was year 2000. It wasn’t the content, at all – by then I had seen graphic, explicit sex and violence – it was just because she thought it was weird.
My mom is a sixth grade teacher, which greatly influenced her feelings about promoting a love of reading in me. Books in our house were rewards, and my worst punishments were when I was grounded from reading.
She didn’t really restrict my book choices by much more than filling my shelves with things she thought appropriate. By only buying me books she was okay with, that took care of it when I was young. As I got older, we’d spend most of our time in the YA section of the library and bookstore, so there was already a filter of sorts in place, and she never told me I couldn’t read anything I picked out. But she also wasn’t buying me romance novels, nor guiding me to that section of the bookstore. I don’t think she would have been thrilled with me choosing a Harlequin, but more because of her perception of the quality of writing, not because they contained sex scenes.
Grandma did give me a copy of Clan of the Cave Bear and the subsequent books, beginning when I was 10 or so. I don’t think mom knew about the graphic depictions of rape and sex in there, and I was shocked that Grandma was reading this stuff! But it made great masturbation material for years, plus I genuinely enjoyed the stories.
My television and movies were very strictly restricted, however. As a young kid, I was allowed to watch anything on PBS, MASH and Star Trek, and that was it. (And MASH was an open secret; my mom would time her shower so that my dad could sneak me out of bed to watch it with him! As soon as the credits rolled, the shower would turn off and I’d scurry back to bed.) She actively disliked and prevented me from watching Tom & Jerry, Saturday morning cartoons and prime time television. I’d sometimes fake illness specifically so that I could stay home and watch Gilligan’s Island and I Dream of Jeannie in the afternoons when she wasn’t home!
Nope. Included on the shelf of my mother’s books were such things as The Hite Report and The Pearl ( Victorian erotica with oodles of ephebophilia and spanking - the Victorian British were an odd folk ). I read both in junior high. By that age I was dumpster diving behind the local bookstore, salvaging remaindered novels that looked interesting ( mostly second rate sf ), and in my neighborhood, salvaging discarded Playboys.
I was a voracious reader as a kid and still am. I wasn’t allowed to read comic books, though. My mother said they were a waste of time or something like that. I think she just wanted to make sure my standards were high. My friend would buy Archie comic books once in a while and I’d go to her house and read them. Once in a while a friend would get hold of something racy and we’d all hide and read it and squeal (I was probably 11, 12, during this time). And one time my father caught me reading, of all things, Little Women and got angry and pulled it out of my hands and threw it across the room because, and I quote, “It’s all about romance!”
My father had issues. Still does, but not quite as bad.
My parents took me to slasher movies at the drive-in from kindergarten age; I don’t think they were terribly concerned.
I had burned through the comprehensive family library of Hardy Boys’ Mysteries (the Nancy Drews as well) and all the Alfred Hitchcock juvenile mystery anthologies as well, by grade three or four. Then I moved onto my older siblings Stephen King books.
I remember reading The Shining in 1979. (I would have been eight.) I also recall reading Anais Nin when I was around twelve.
I just wanted to say that I am so, so grateful that grounding me from reading must have never occurred to my parents- that would have been the worst punishment ever!
To read? No… I devoured whatever I could get my hands on and went through phases. Around 10 was all the horror/ghost stories, before that was Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys, after that was my first romances (I got into Mom’s Harlequins at about age 11, my tastes have changed quite a bit from those ones though I still read plenty of romance…).
Movies on the other hand were highly regulated. I got Jurassic Park for my 11th birthday and had to beg to keep it, I never saw Rocky Horror Picture show until I went to visit my cousins and my ten year younger cousin was watching it (I was maybe 16 at the time…). I still get weird looks when people go on about a favourite (old) movie and I haven’t seen it…
I did get a lot of go out and play, so I would often take a book with me and lounge in the sun and read lol.
I read absolutely everything and my mom didn’t really care, because frankly she didn’t have the time to bother. Once or twice a church lady pestered her about it, “Do you know what that book she has is about?” but she figured it wasn’t really a big deal.
The post quoted in the OP, though, I assumed wasn’t “won’t allow” but rather “won’t give it to the child to read”.
My mother wouldn’t let me read (or more properly wouldn’t buy for me) comic books. Can’t remember if it was because she thought they were trash or because she didn’t believe in “wasteful spending”. She was a woman who was outraged in 1962 when my school raised the price of school lunches from 20 to 25 cents. I was brown-bagging after that. She did on one occasion at dinner talk about how horrible it was a show like “Bewitched” was on and another occasion read a newspaper article denouncing “Hogan’s Heroes”. But she wouldn’t stop me from watching them as long it was my turn with the family TV.
It really, really was. It got so bad sometimes that mom would catch me in the bathroom reading the labels on the cleaners because I just physically craved the sensation of reading!
And of course, it was nefarious. Not only was it a punishment because I liked books, but it made books even more appealing because I have a huge case of “you’re not the boss of me.” As soon as my grounding was over, I’d read with *such *a vengeance, just to show her! Which, of course, was what she really wanted more than anything - to have me love books.
Bitch used to give me a flashlight to play with and warn me not to read under the covers after lights out, too. She’s confessed since that she *hoped *I’d rebel and read more. :eek: (And of course, I did.)
My mom was also an English teacher and she encouraged reading at a young age. Since we didn’t have phonics in school she spent a summer teaching me how to sound out words and I was reading when I started school.
She read to me. The most wonderful things - Tennyson, Longfellow and the sorts of children’s books that were used in education.
And she had an enormous library of contemporary literature. I guess she gave me conflicting messages about what was appropriate for a child since so much was available to me.
I can remember her telling me as an adult that the school librarian had called her and let her know that I was taking books out of the more mature sections but I don’t remember her doing anything about it.
I had read Huxley’s Brave New World and Rand’s The Fountainhead from our home bookshelves by sixth grade. And in seventh grade she handed me In Sunshine and Shadows, a collection of Poe’s short stories cementing a lifelong interest in the darker side of human nature.
In eighth grade I was scolded for having a hidden copy of Frannie and Zoe in my bedroom. And she took it away. Mixed messages.
I think she believed that a child should read what he is able but was old-fashioned enough to be unsure of her opinion. It’s possible that she had encountered complaints from parents in the past and didn’t care to let me read what others may have disapproved. Small town.
Unfortunately she rarely had time to discuss what I had read with me and I believe that that is key when a child is reading beyond his apparent level of maturity.
Not only did she monitor what I read but also when I was allowed to read. That was probably expedient or I would have had my nose in a book all the time. I can remember her hollering upstairs after bedtime that if I was reading (which I usually was with a flashlight under the covers) to stop it and go to sleep.)
Nope. But probably because I never gave them a reason to. I never desired to read the “bad” books. I still don’t. The only thing I can think of was my uncle’s dirty cartoons that I found in his old bedroom. I didn’t want my parents to know I was reading them, but the book did suddenly disappear.
You’ve got to remember, I encountered the Narnia book series, and got worried reading The Last Battle with all the references to Tash. I thought I was reading some cult book. I stopped reading it halfway through. I censored myself more than my parents could ever do.
How’s your vision nowadays? I believed it when my parents told me my sister’s horrible eyesight was because of this, so to this day I insist on more than adequate lighting when reading. Currently, I’m the only one in my family with uncorrected vision.
I remember when I was maybe twelve I found a book at the library that was completely dedicated to how cult leaders use sex to control their underlings. My mom found it and bitched at me for it but didn’t actually take the book away from me.
Terrible, actually. I can see about 6 inches in front of my nose, uncorrected. Yes, that’s about exactly the distance my book sits when I lie on my side reading in bed. I’ve often wondered if the position of the book, rather than the flashlight, led to my myopia, or affected the distance of my best vision somehow.
I think the only time I was cautioned about a book from my parents was when I started on Journey to Shiloh when I was 9 or 10. I was told it wasn’t a happy book. I still read it… it wasn’t happy.
Never had any reading material censored at home. My parents were Book-of-the-Month-Club fans, so what was available in the home library was not always my style.
School introduced me to Enid Blyton and similar kids’ books. Again, it was a small country school and the selections were REALLY limited.
The public library, however, once we moved into the city, required a note from home to allow me to browse the adult fiction shelves.
Porn? Well Mom’s old nursing texts had some interesting line drawings …
Not really. I remember pretty early on, in elementary school, when I got my public library card, they gave permission for the card to take out adult section stuff. I suspect that any gladness they had that I was reading above my grade level would have overshadowed any worry they had about the material itself. I do remember once, in college, my mother expressed some worry about me reading horror novels, but that was obviously more about reading crap than reading stuff I wasn’t ready for.
As soon as the credits rolled, the shower would turn off and I’d scurry back to bed.) She actively disliked and prevented me from watching Tom & Jerry, Saturday morning cartoons and prime time television. I’d sometimes fake illness specifically so that I could stay home and watch Gilligan’s Island and I Dream of Jeannie in the afternoons when she wasn’t home!