It was. I used to get grounded from reading when my mom caught me reading with a flashlight under the covers. I just started putting pillows in my bed and reading in the closet with a flashlight.
My parents didn’t restrict what I read though, it was a real struggle to keep enough books around for me. I read my way through everything available in my school library pretty quickly (small rural school) and pestered constantly for trips to the town library and bookstore.
For my kids until they were 10ish my only condition was that I had a chance to read anything I hadn’t already read first. If something came up I wanted to be prepared to discuss it with them. All that stopped when my son got hooked on horror - it’s the one genre I just can’t read, I tend to expand upon the plot in my nightmares afterwards.
We started the kids off with both an allowance and a specific book allowance when they were 5 or 6 and family trips to the bookstore happened every month.
I didn’t really get an allowance when I was a kid, from either parent, but Mom was always great about keeping me hip-deep in books, even though she didn’t make a lot of money. Every time a new flyer came in from Scholastic or Troll, I’d go through and circle everything I wanted–and she’d get all of it, or at least most of it. When the box would get delivered to the class, usually two or three individual items would get handed out to other kids, and then I’d take the rest of the box home. Anything else I wanted to buy I had to use my own money for–which is where most of my birthday/Christmas income went.
I wasn’t at all limited and I read everything I could get my hands on. Honestly I don’t even think anyone noticed what I was reading unless I talked about it. My mom was really into those graphic horror novels; she kept them right there on the shelf so I read them, and I think I really was too young, or too sensitive, to be reading that stuff. It didn’t keep me from letting my daughter read whatever she wanted though, and I’m glad.
Very strict restrictions on what I was allowed to watch (very limited TV, only G movies unless my parents prescreened them until I was twelve or so), no restrictions whatsoever on what I was allowed to read.
It’s sort of funny how many people say they had no reading restrictions at all, but were censored in what TV/movies they could watch (myself included). I wonder what’s behind that.
I just also remembered another source of books. My Mom was a SAHM and did a lot of volunteer work at our school, and one year she ran the Reading is FUNdamental! (RIF) program. This involved getting crates and crates of books sanctioned as grade/age appropriate and passing them out to students. We wound up with tons of books left over (I remember being amazed that there were kids who, when given the opportunity to select a free book, elected NOT to take one…although if I noticed that going on, I’d ask them to pick a book I had my eye on and give it to me instead!). Does anyone else remember this program? Is it still going on?
Visual things are seen (heh) as having a bigger impact on people. (Count me as another one who had what I could watch censored much more heavily than what I could read.)
My mom generally had no idea what I was reading. I’m sure it goes down to bad parenting but it worked for us that she didn’t stick her nose in. TV, on the other hand was a communal experience intruding on everybody in the house. That said, there still wasn’t a whole lot of censoring there.
It is much easier to avoid that bad stuff in books. First, most of the time if you’re too young you just won’t get it. You mights till enjoy the book overall but then if you re-read it years later you realize you never really understood the rape scene or whatever (e.g.: It wasn’t until a decade after I first read it at 10 that I learned that Clan of the Cave Bear is a really awful book). Plus, if I was truly bothered by something I could just stop reading and the bad thing stopped. TV/movies is much more passive in that regard.
Another thing my mom did in terms of not censoring my reading is that she didn’t control when I could read. She didn’t care if I stayed up all night just so long as I was in my room and quiet by 9pm. No lights out, no making sure I was getting 8 full hours of sleep. So long as I was getting myself out of bed and to school and not falling asleep once there all was good. So I literally read myself to sleep every night. “Grounding” me from reading wouldn’t have worked, I’d just have gone into the bathroom and read shampoo bottles before moving into the kitchen and reading all the labels on food.
It was quite a shock when I got to college and lived with someone else to learn that other people found it difficult to go to sleep with the lights on since I had been doing that my entire life, just reading until I fell asleep. For a while people in the dorm thought I was afraid of the dark.
Anything else I wanted to buy I had to use my own money for–which is where most of my birthday/Christmas income went.