I, too, was criticised for reading “too much” in primary school. Teachers would confiscate (and be horrified by the content of) my reading material.
My parents, both book-loving academics, had a large library, and I had read every book we owned (including Stephen Hawking, the Joy of Sex, Marquis de Sade, Voltaire, Jackie Collins, Asimov, Biographies, Encyclopaedia Britannica…) by the time I left primary school.
Admittedly, i don’t think my parents realised until later that I had found their “private” stash of erotica and stuff, but I was a rather precocious 9 year old so I don’t think it worried them that much.
The teachers at school, on the other hand…
The librarians at my local public library were also a little surprised at my reading material… they used to ask me if I wouldn’t prefer to read some Roald Dahl instead of Germaine Greer…
My father has an interest in the occult, and he had a shelf full of books with titles like “You Have Lived Before” and “Edgar Case on Atlantis” --collecting this sort of thing is a quirk of my dad’s. These were the only books that I was not allowed to read as a child, and, in retrospect, I can see my mother’s reasoning–a great many of those books are written in a psuedo-scientific, very confidant, authoritative way, and at ten I was really pretty credulous. I think she felt like I would take what I read at face value, and that my intellectual development would be better served if I was directed away from those books until my critical reading skills were a bit better developed. Of course, she could have let me read them all and then engaged me in the the sort of discussion that would have helped develop those skills, but, as is often the case in childrearing, it became a question of opportunity cost-doing so would have required that she read all those books herself, and that we had found the time to talk about them, which would have required that she give up some other activity. She made the judgement that her time was more valuably spent in some other parenting capacity than discussing Edgar Case, and since I know my mother’s judgement to be generally good, I have no reason to think this wasn’t a wise choice. Certainly she found plenty of other opportunities to help me develop intellectually.
Added to this is the fact that my father’s interest in the occult is a bit of a sore spot between my very Catholic mother and my decidely agnostic father–it’s something that, for the last 30 years, they’ve cheerfully avoided discussing in any great depth.
My parents read totally different books than me, so I don’t think they have figured out exactly what I read yet. If they had, then proably they would have censored most of it. They do watch what movies I see, as if seeing is worse than reading.
My fourth grade teacher was great, she let me read as much as I wanted as long as I got good grades. My sixth grade english teacher was horrible though! If I tried to so much as to take in a book that she hadn’t pre-approved, then the book was taken up, and was given back eventually, often around a month or two of pestering. Now for the booklist!
At about age 12 I had read the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice, at age 13 I had made a nice dent in the Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey, at 14 I had read the first Kushiel book, Kushiels Dart, and last year I started reading the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton. At the age of 16 I have already read many different sex scenes of all different persuasions, sadistic, masochistic, and plain vanilla.
Heh, I don’t even need sex ed with that record!
Other than that, extremely violent scenes and rape scenes haven’t been included in my reading list, but I am just waiting to run across them.
Oh, BOY, did my parents censor my reading! I remember several books being thrown into the trash in front of me (one was the screenplay for Hair when I was about 16) with a long lecture about my tastes, or lack thereof. I was grounded from reading several times. Not just a specific genre, but grounded from reading as punishment. I was also forbidden to read SF/fantasy for what seemed like long periods of time. Now I can’t remember if the groundings were for a week, a month, or longer. My parents DESPERATELY wanted a “normal” girl, and I was quite the tomboy, with an “unhealthy” interest in SF/fantasy. I was even discouraged from reading science popularizations! It wasn’t “feminine”. My parents would have been OK if I’d read the typical girls’ novels of the day, or acted “like a young lady”. I did neither. I found both the girls’ novels and acting like a lady to be incredibly boring and downright nauseating.
We’ve pretty much buried the hatchet. My parents are now glad that I can explain medical articles to them, or show them how to do something on the computer/internet. But I’m still very bitter about it. I got into the habit of sneaking around to do stuff I was interested in, and it’s not a pleasant habit to have, or to break. I also got into the habit of substituting daydreaming about forbidden activities (camping, nothing truly bizarre) instead of actually doing the activities, because I was forbidden to do many things.
I’ve pretty much let my daughter read whatever she wants to. I’ve made sure that she’s able to discuss things with me, too.
My mother is and always was an avid reader. She encouraged my sister and I to read anything and everything we could get our grubby little hands on. We spent every moment we could in the library. She started my life-long love for and addiction to books. I grew up reading science fiction, horror, suspense, mystery and fantasy. My sister always enjoyed historical romances. That is, after she stopped reading the Sweet Valley High series.
I remember one visit to the library when my mother ‘had words’ with the librarian because she wouldn’t allow my sister to check out a book because it was adult fiction and my sister was only 13 at the time. I enjoyed watching my normally sweet, laid back mother chew the woman up and spit her out.
My parents didn’t restrict anything that I read, heck, my step-father gave me his old Playboy collection when I was 14. Best Step-Father Ever. Most of my reading tended towards science fiction, fantasy, and horror type stuff.
The librarian refused to check out Sybil to me when I was in 6th grade so about 11. She even called my mom who gave her an earful about censoring me and her NOT being my parent. Dad took me out and bought the book for me. I do remember Mom saying she thought the book to “old” for me, but that’s a far cry from stopping me from reading it.
When I was in 7th or 8th grade someone from the school called my mom and ask her to encourage me to readLESS! Mother’s answer was succinct and something not bloody likely. The school felt I was “hiding” from real life.:rolleyes:
My 8th grade math teacher tried to throw me out of the room for reading The Exorcist ( what a crapload that book was). I said “Try it and I promise Mom wil come down on you like a load of bricks.” Ornery little shit I was:D
When I was about 12, my mom gave me a copy of Aztec. Oddly enough, she never ended up giving me the Talk, and after around page 43 of Aztec, I stopped neededing it.
Well, my cousin wrote The Satanic Bible - actually, he was my father’s cousin by marriage - and it was on our bookshelf, although I wasn’t inspired to read it until I was well into my teens.
My reading wasn’t restricted, and my mother was not terribly aware of what I was reading at any given time. I do restrict my daughter’s reading to some degree, and I do stay aware of what she reads. (Although it wasn’t that long ago that I found a decidedly adults-only book in her bedroom… THAT was a fun conversation!)
There was some brouhaha hereabouts not too long ago - a middle school librarian was taken to task for recommending Judy Blume’s Forever, and there was a huge anti-censorship thing going on about it. It is my opinion that Forever is NOT suitable for a middle school library, although I would not have a problem with it in a high school library. When I brought that to the discussion, you would have thought I suggested burning the Bible.
My Mom was a voracious reader of anything; my Dad read history. I was given free rein.
I was in a Catholic girls’ high school when my public school friend introduced me to Victor Hugo. She had submitted several book reports on some of his works and encouraged me to read them. I did so and submitted one (I forget which).
My parents were called in to talk to my English teacher and were advised that I was reading books by an author on the Black List. My folks came to my defense and said they were works of literature, not titillation. I got a ‘C’ for my effort. I guess we won.
This was at a time before Henry Miller was allowed to be sold within the US. I think that if my Dad had heard of him and had read him, that I might have been restricted. Many years later I smuggled Tropic of Capricorn from the UK to the US. Months later, it was allowed.
My parents let me read whatever I wanted. When I was five, they actually pulled me out of the local elementary school when the teacher told me I was forbiden to read and had to go make playdoh animals or draw, and then told me my jack-o-lantern was “wrong” because I had drawn triangle eyes, but “eyes are round!” (Not pumpkin eyes!) Mom threatened to make a big stink and home-school me unless they put me in the local magnet school, which they grudgingly did. Best thing that ever happened to me.
A couple of years later, Mom chewed out the branch librarian when she refused to let me check out Agatha Christie books, because they were in the “adult” section. They were under orders after that to let me read whatever I wanted. If and when I have kids, I will do the same. Of course, I’d like to know what they are reading so I can help them put it into proper context.
My parents weren’t big readers. I don’t think it ever occurred to them to question what I was reading, and they certainly never offered to discuss any of it with me! I’d have been horrified if they tried!
My dad did try to get me to go outside and play more, but reading was generally more interesting.
One day I decided to combine the two activities. I’ve always been good at walking and reading, so I picked up my current book and went for a walk. One of my mom’s friends saw me walking and reading and called my mom. Apparently she thought it was rude to walk and read in public.
Rude??? 30 years later, and I’m STILL trying to figure that one out.
My parents did not read books…well my Mom would read some romance novels occasionally but that was it
They had no idea of what I read or how age inappropriate it was
The closest I ever got was the librarians who would question me on books I brought BACK not checked out…they just wanted to be sure I was understanding what I read
In retrospect they were pretty cool about the whole thing though I’m sure it raised a few eyebrows with some of my choices of reading material
I am another one who always got yelled at for reading too much in school, which seems like the teachers are shooting themselves in the feet, when you think about it.
My mother always let me read what I wanted too when I was growing up, although she tried to prevent me from reading “American Psycho” by Bret Easton Ellis when I was… 13, I think. It didn’t work though.
My parents never tried to censor my reading material. I knew the “facts of life” by 5 because I had read the particulars in my mom’s medical textbooks. I was 10 when I read Lolita and mom asked if she could borrow it when I was finished. She did, however jeer the s*it out of me when I was 8 for reading some Judith Krantz dreck.
My teachers ran hot and cold on the subject. Some highlights of grade school were:
Kindergarten: Teacher made us file past her and read aloud a passage from a book. If you couldn’t do it, you couldn’t go to recess.
4th grade: Teacher wanted to see if I was as precocious a reader as the other teachers said I was. (started reading at 2) For my first book report, instead of picking the book out myself like everybody else, she literally drops a 800+page copy of Jane Eyre on my desk and says “You’re doing this.” She was cordially invited to bite me when I finished the book in a week and had the report to her a few days later.
6th grade: Teacher calls dad to complain that I was “reading too much.” Dad, bless him, said something along the lines of “Are you really calling me to bitch about this? What the F*ck do you want her to do? Coke?” then he hung up on her.
8th grade: I had taken my copy of Gray’s Anatomy to school for something to read during assembly. Some of the guys grabbed it and started snickering over the cross sections of the uterus. The Vice Principal grabbed it and told me off for creating a disturbance with my “vulgar” book.
My parents didn’t particularly restrict my reading. There was one incident in which I was told to finish reading the bookshelf with kids/young adults books on it at home before I was allowed to get started on the adult books. This would have been when I was seven or eight, and was based on the premise that there were things my mother thought I should learn and understand on her shelf of kids’ books before I read the adult ones. She was also slightly insistent that I finish all the other books of Greek mythology before I read the kiddie-translation of the Iliad. No, I have never figured out the logic behind that one. But she’s a librarian at heart (worked in a library and a kids’ book store for a while) and both my parents are widely read, so they did encourage my brother and I to read and to love reading.
The only real caveat was that if something sexual went over my head, they weren’t going to explain it. My mother said I could read what I wanted but if I didn’t get it, then I’d have to wait until I was older and re-read it. It worked for me.
I wasn’t allowed to read MAD magazine, for reasons that were never explained to me.
Naturally, I did read them and I’m pretty sure I was forbidden because of Spy vs. Spy . God, those two are sinister.
And there was the incident of Men in Love by Nancy Friday, which was as close to a sex education that a Catholic school girl ever got. God, that lecture just about put me into a coma.
I will not censor my children, but I want to know what they are reading and make sure they are not learning how to make bombs or hate-mongering psuedo-writing.