I’m not a parent, but if I was I wouldn’t want other parents usurping my authority like that. It seems to me that it’s a short leap from this to a Baptist parent telling a Jewish kid that he was going to hell for not believing in Jesus.
The girl is 12, the parents absolutely have a right, no, an obligation to limit this CHILDS exposure to the world. If they feel some literature is off limits, so be it. That is THEIR call to make, not Dangerosa’s. or yours, or mine. Would you mind if someone gave your 12 yo son “literature” on how wonderful and glorious it is to be a suicide bomber, behind your back, with a promise that he was free to come to them with any questions, but don’t worry about telling you? Unlikely. Just because you or I do not find Dangerosa’s offerings objectionable does not mean the girl’s parents can’t.
But more importantly, it is just 100% not right to encourage a 12 yo (twelve, not even a teenager) to keep secrets and hide things from their parents. Ever. Other kids may do that, but their parents,(!?!) that’s shameful. That is my main problem with this. Religion is just the side issue.
I’m not a parent either, but what you are describing is not a usurpation of authority. If anybody’s usurpring the authority of the parents, it’s the daughter. Once she’s decided to read the books, she’s going to read them. Where they come from is a detail. But I’ll admit that maybe I read the bit about the mother being “upset” the daughter read Girl With the Dragon Tattoo the wrong way. I thought it meant the book was forbidden; maybe it doesn’t. Would you mind clearing that up, Dangerosa?
Oh please.
Dangerosa has said nothing about encouraging the daughter to keep the books a secret.
(Quote from Marley)-Oh please.
Right, so, since YOU don’t find what she is sharing objectionable, they have no right to? :dubious:
Strongly disagree. At 12 years old it most certainly is the parent’s authority. You might not agree with their choices, but at that age they certainly still have parental authority to do as they see fit.
I don’t think you can use the dubious smiley after comparing To Kill A Mockingbird to literature that encourages suicide bombing.
I was taking issue with your use of the word “usurp.” Nobody is supplanting the girl’s parents. Their authority (if they have laid down the law on this topic) is being thwarted, maybe, but not usurped. And like I said, if all of this is the case, it’s the child who made the decision to ignore her parents’ dictates on reading material.
Bingo. They deserve better than being pawns in a grownup’s game.
raspberry hunter how can you be an agnostic Christian? You don’t know is there is a God but you believe in one? Or is it more like You don’t know about God but Know Jesus was a historical person, just not devine? Just wondering. I personally am agnostic since I’ve never seen any either for against a God I just don’t take diesm or atheism on faith.
Absolutely. It doesn’t matter if you don’t agree with the parents. It doesn’t matter it the child doesn’t agree with her parents (few do). But keep your nose out of their business. If you don’t like what they are exposing your child to then do something about it. Tit for tat doesn’t make it right.
Sorry, rsat3acr, I was being sloppy and conflating two definitions of Christianity. I go to church every week and am active in my church, performing what we call “callings” more-or-less faithfully and being active in my church community. In that way I consider myself a Christian. I also believe that hope is a basis for faith. However, I am aware that most Christians would not consider me a true Christian, given that I cannot actually say that I believe any of the stuff in, say, the Creeds (I can’t say I don’t believe it either, mind you).
I agree with this; however, I do not see any evidence that this is what’s happening in the OP. When I lent books to my friend’s child, I a) never lent anything to him that my friend had a problem with, such as Mockingbird, even when I thought his concerns were, quite frankly, silly, and based on never having actually read the book; and b) my friend’s son was always free to talk to his parents about what he was reading; I never asked him to hide or keep secrets. I assume Dangerosa is operating under similar principles, though I may be projecting. Now, her kid’s friend’s parents, on the other hand…
Would you feel different if dangerosa’d daughter gave this girl the book? I am a parent, and when my girls were 12 I never would even have thought to monitor what their friends were giving them to read. They both grew up fine - no suicide bombings as far as I can tell.
For everyone - what would you think about giving a kid a book about dinosaurs if they are in a creationist household? Should the parents be allowed to keep their kids away from such objectionable material in school? I’m not interested in what the law says, but is there a moral obligation to aid and abet a parent in controlling the thoughts of a child and her exposure to the age-appropriate world?
raspberry hunter, got it, makes sense.
Marley, how about this, what do you think is an appropriate limit on information a person may convey to another person’s young child, without that parent’s knowledge, under the guise of having the child over for a children’s party? I’ll tell you how far I think the limit is, stop before you even start. Its not your place. Its sneaky and that is not a good quality. You don’t do things with other people’s young children if you sincerely believe they will object to it. It matters not one tiny bit if you feel the objection in reasonable. You do abuse their trust in you to supervise their child by providing them what you know the parents do not want them to have.
You don’t have to encourage them to keep it a secret for it to be a secret. You don’t encourage a young child to go against their parents wishes. You just don’t. Its wrong.
We’re not talking about a 17 or 18 yo here. Twelve is still very young. Responsible adults do not teach, help, or encourage a 12 yo to disobey their parents. Even if they do not agree with the parents expectations.
I do not censor my children’s reading materials, (within reason, my 7 yo is still a bit young for Hustler) that doesn’t mean other people can’t. This kid has a long life ahead of her, she’ll get a chance to read whatever she wants to eventually. You don’t unilaterally decide what is or is not appropriate for someone else’s child.
If you are taking a hand in thwarting the parent’s wishes, you are usurping their authority, or the linguistic difference is small enough to be meaningless. No, you are not responsible to protect their daughter from outside influences that are not under your control, but taking an active role in exposing her to them is crossing the line, IMO.
Again, what would be the difference in a Southern Babtist from giving my (hypothetical) Jewish 12 year old literature from Jews for Jesus? Do you think that this isn’t usurping the parent’s authority?
Yes. In fact, I think that’s the crux of it. Kids trade books, ideas, music, etc. as equals. When you’re adult, whatever you say or do carries with it the air of authority, even if it is not deserved, and even if it is not intended on your part.
Edited to add: obviously, I’m speaking for myself, not for RTFirefly, to whom the question was addressed.
I think-
Hey, you can’t boss me around like that! I’m somebody’s child! Have you talked to my parents first? 
Seriously: you are taking an extraordinarily broad view of parental authority if you are suggesting it’s wrong to give a child any kind of information without the prior consent of the parent. That’s absurd. Phrased that way, you simply shouldn’t talk to any child under any circumstance because you might say something the parents don’t approve of.
You accused her telling the child to keep secrets from her parents, and that is a seriously loaded accusation. (Intentionally or not, you were suggesting Dangerosa was making it easier for someone to prey on that child.) Dangerosa never said anything about encouraging the girl to keep the books a secret. If you mean that she was doing something else, then you should’ve said she was doing something else.
She’s not encouraging the child to go against the parents’ wishes.
I think this kind of “the authority of the parents should not be challenged” idea is also really irresponsible. It’s simply not true that parents always know what’s best or do the right thing by their children, and I don’t think we do anybody any favors by pretending that’s the case. Certainly I think most parents would prefer not to have their authority compromised so they don’t find out they are wrong - and their children don’t find out they are wrong - but I think that kind of boundary-pushing is important.
No. It might be presumptuous or obnoxious, but they’re not usurping or weakening your authority. You have the ability to raise your children in whatever religious tradition you like, but you don’t actually have the ability to project that authority into the world to keep other religious traditions away from your children or keep your children away from other religious traditions. What they are actually doing in that example is ignoring your authority because it doesn’t really exist - to the point that they probably wouldn’t know about it in the first place.
I don’t know. They weren’t happy with her reading Harry Potter…she’s also borrowed Lord of the Rings from me. She isn’t getting Lolita or Anais Nin from me. I know she snuck around with the Steig Larsson books. We’ve also exposed her to the evil idea of Role Playing Games.
She’s is OWL right now. Which is why the sleepover with my daughters “church friends” is sort of threatening to her friend, even though my daughter has been to plenty of slumber parties with the Evangelical church friends.
But we haven’t invited her friend to UU Youth Activities. For my daughter at our church those really start next year.
Since these are books she can check out of the schools library without permission from her parents, if they really want to limit her worldview that much, they should start homeschooling.
And I’m not encouraging her to hide anything from her parents. I am saying to her “if you read something that you want to talk to an adult about, and don’t think you can discuss it with your parents, please come to me. I’m fairly well read and I have a friend who is a Young Adult Librarian who reads pretty much every book you are likely to come across.” If she gets her hands on something that she finds disturbing or just needs to talk about, she needs someone. She isn’t going to suddenly go to her parents - nor is it likely her parents are really going to be able to provide context for Scott Westerfield novels.
Let’s just say we agree to disagree on this point. I don’t think you have the ethical or moral right to present religious materials to a 12 year old. Legality aside (I don’t think anything we’re discussing is illegal), I believe parents certainly expect other parents to respect their child’s religious upbringing. I think most parents would cut off all contact with someone who tried to proselytize to a child.