Great piece, Danielle. Interesting note, though not surprising. We have a new copy of that story and the smokers have been edited out, apparently.

Amen! The most sensible thing I've read in a long time. Thank you for your voice of reason and clarity, Danielle. You make me feel like I'm not alone amidst all the craziness out there in the big ole world.

Amen! I saw a video clip of Jeff Foxworthy yesterday, promoting his new book of poems, for kids. He mentioned that when he was a boy, a good day was when he came in from playing covered in dirt from head to foot. A great day was when his mom made him strip on the front porch because of all the dirt.
Kids' entertainment these days is too PC (though crude humor is allowed). Go figure.

I would definitely agree with you on so many points, and the contrasting examples from books and shows of the past are good.

"We filter and sanitize their worlds and experiences in a way that past generations never thought to do."

But I also find that we expose children to a host of experiences that past generations never thought to do. Not only do we see good as bad, but it seems bad is presented as good, too. The same people who would edit out a cigarette might be completely oblivious to the struggles of current parents as they fight the assault on the purity of their children!

I know you are keenly aware of this battle. It is just that even as I was nodding at all the points you made about allowing your child to have *real* experiences, it occurred to me that not all things are bad to filter. We might make Oscar less grouchy, but it seems children who are main characters in books and shows are more bratty and whiny. I wish they'd filter that out, lol.

I say Amen too. As a survivor of child sexual abuse, I wanted so badly to give my boys the childhood I did not have. I wanted them to play and use their imaginations. To get dirty and play games and have fun. And I wanted them to trust and to know home was a safe place. And I wanted them to know the truth and to know the difference between good secrets and bad secrets.
I wanted all that and I did all that, by the grace of God. My boys are grown and happy and secure. They know about joy and trust and feeling safe. Please. Let your child be a child. It goes too quickly.

Unfortunstely, some things aren't filtered. Children are every day subjected to the benefits of premarital sex, homosexuality, and drug use, the list is endless. Boys can't fight, heaven forbid if a girl wants to play with dolls instead of joining the boys football team. Children must be taught that our heroes are now villians and our Christian traditions are racist and bigoted. The world that most of us grew up in has been turned upside down and sadly, no one seems able to stop it.

It is truly a shame that children now seem to be protected from things that are not truly harmful, while being bombarded with swill that can readily destroy them. My paternal grandfather and his brother my great uncle, greatly enjoyed their cigars. To this day, when I see an elderly man smoking a cigar, it brings back fond memories of these two fine men. I often think that if the worst threat I ever faced was a lit cigar or cigarette, I would have led a very sheltered and rather boring life.

As for being dirty, a friend grew up in a mining town, and before coming back home to see his mother who now lived elsewhere, slid down an iron tailings pile in his jeans. When his mother saw his pants, she burst into tears, because that was how he frequently came home as a boy in that town. Kids do need to get dirty, and to have some unstructured activities.

We don't want to bombard children with awful truths, but we cannot and should not lie to them. Kids know when you are lying and all these sanitized stories and "Disneyfied" stories create a strong suspicion among children that you are lying to them.
Unpleasant truths should be presented in the proper context, but should not be twisted or made to be pretty, when they are not.

A good example of this is war: war is not a video game, it is a horrific thing, with burned cities, dead children, and mangled corpses. It is not something to be glorified or sanitized. Yes, there are times when fight you must, when you have no other choice, but do not sell it as a glorious endeavor, or try to make it less awful than it really is, as administrations both GOP and Democratic have done over the years.

We loved reading the Curious George books with our kids, and partly for just that reason. And the adults weren't the only one smoking. George had a pipe! (Some 9 years later, my kids have somehow escaped any desire to light up and puff away). He floated up into the sky holding onto balloons! He did all manner of dangerous things. Every child has the right to a politically-incorrect childhood, that is to say, a REAL childhood.

Great article, I was blessed to have a childhood with danger and real people and their stories, a some sadness too which matures a person. BUt I got that same old version from the library and nearly wet myself I laughed so hard! My husband smokes, which obviously I don't like, and I have to teach our little children that it's not ok which is hard because it puts daddy in a bad light. But the way I hear some kids (I teach first grade) talk about cigarettes, it's like it's mortal sin! THey're not given the whole picture. So one day when one of my students, a very astute young boy remarked that "the principle does drugs", I had to talk to him. I told him that my husband smokes, and reminded him that even his priest does occasionally. I explained that it is dangerous and unhealthy. He asked, but does it feel good?" because he clearly couldn't understand why something could be good and bad at the same time. I told him the truth. Yes, it does feel good. BUt your body then craves it and even if you want to stop it is very, very difficult, and that we should pray for those who are trying, but to remember they are not doing something illegal, and "doing drugs" is too harsh a description! There are such worse thing going on, commonly in our culture that the things that are emphasised as "bad" blows my mind.

My hubs is really good about balancing my tendancies to follow after our 2 year old with sanitizer and wipes! Thanks for a great reminder. I linked to this on my weekly roundup, post is under my name.

I teach 5th grade PSR and this past Sunday is my favorite class of the year. We debate "Hansel and Gretel". The class starts with a review discussion on sin. What is it? Where does it come from? Why do we do it? Sin=choice.

I tell the story of "Hansel and Gretel" and then the kids in the class get to vote for each character - are they Good, Neutral or Evil (I know it's kind of black and white, but it simplifies things). Afterward, we debate everyone's position and why they judged each character the way they did, focusing on the use of rationales and justifications of behavior.

By the end of class we've determined that, as written, every character in the story is evil (Those bratty kids vandalized the house and stole the jewels after killing the witch [in self defense])

One of the kids asked, "Aren't all the characters in all the fairy tales evil?" This made the closing of the lesson easy, aren't we all?

We are always hearing about "teachable moments." Curious George and the pipes are a great example. Santized versions make me sad. Another, even sadder, example is Hugh Lofting's Doctor Doolittle books. Lofting, who wrote in the first third of the twentieth century, was ahead of his time in many ways. He has black and Native American characters who are peers of Doctor Doolittle. But, despite his efforts to be the PC guy of the 1920's, his time conquered him. He has a black character who must become white to win the princess, and a Native American character who wants to be white to be more like his hero, Doctor Doolittle. These are important teachable moments for the tween set. You can still get unedited copies of "The Voyages of Doctor Doolittle" (the second book in the series), because it won a Newbery Medal. But you can't get a new edition of "The Story of Doctor Doolittle" because the original is no longer acceptable. Which is a shame! Not only are the story and writing interesting, but the teachable moment is worth the price of a first edition.

The sterilization of all aspects of life is essential to the burgeoning Brave New World. Google for my related page on amazon by using these words:

Resist the Brave New World

Just another comment on the cigarette thing -- though I abhor them, and will be very disappointed if any of my children ever picks up the habit, we were blessed with a retired priests' residence next door to our church for years and years (until just this past summer), and I'd see one of the elderly Fathers walking downtown nearly every day with a cigarette between his fingers in one hand and his Rosary dangling out of the other hand (sometimes also balancing a cup of coffee). It remains one of my favorite memories of those wonderful priests!

Let's not forget the movie Pinocchio. Not only was there smoking by the main character, but also drinking. My goodness, such a bad example for our children! (Who cares if Pinocchio paid the consequences for his actions.) We must censor it. *Rolls eyes* Here, have And Tango Makes Three instead.

This vacuous fashionable phrase - "a teachable moment" - really annoys me. Are there moments in which something can't be learned? No. All moments are "teachable moments."

As a Catholic bookseller, I was trying to find some faith filled books to recommend to the local Catholic school.

I read some delightful books over the summer. People smoked, Native Americans were referred to as 'Indians', the list went on.

Sadly there were few of these delightful books that would pass muster with a modern school board despite riveting portrayals of interesting times and places, chaste living, and faith filled characters.

Looking at my own childhood, and seeing what is presently marketed to children, I must wonder whether we can say childhood is truly sanitized. Yes, we try to omit facts such as smoking, alcohol, junk food, and so-called political incorrectness; however, we also have violent video games (played by eight-year-olds) where you can tear your opponent into bloody pieces, Britney Spears songs sung by seven-year-olds that spell out obscenities, and the works of R.L. Stine. I recall a series I read in my childhood, which described, in graphic detail, the actions of the villains, which included, torture, mutilation, cannibalism, genocide, and reflecting on the joys of absolute Evil. (I later learnt that this series was indeed sanitized -- the children's editions I read omitted the rapes).
I agree that there needs to be a sense of age-appropriateness, and a moral context; however, if children are sheltered from the ugly realities of life, they will find themselves unable to cope when facing those realities.
Our society knew better back in the fifties. In the show Leave it to Beaver, the Cleavers had an alcoholic friend, whose condition they wanted to shelter from Beaver, as he was too young to know about alcoholism. Unfortunately, the end result was that the alcoholic, claiming he was sick and that the liquor was what he used for medicine, persuaded Beaver to get some for him. The Cleavers, finding out what Beaver had done, realized their own mistake: in keeping the boy in the dark, they led him to handle the situation in the worst possible way.

We can't forget the cigarette's evil fraternal twin: a gun

In the theatrical version of E.T., the police were visibly armed with guns when they raided the family's home in order to capture E.T.

When E.T. was rereleased on DVD a few years ago, filmmakers digitally replaced the guns with flashlights.

I might also add that in the schools around here, little boys are punished if they fashion anything into a shape of a gun: that can include a scrap of paper or their fingers.

I did some subbing in public schools recently and frequently witnessed teachers scolding and discouraging little boys from jumping off the playground equipment---equipment perhaps 3-5 feet high.

When one reads news stories of women being raped or other crimes being committed in plain view and no one attempts to intervene....

Oh, how true it is! I still have a copy of my third-grade reader. It was a child's novel, divided into chapters. Some of you may know it: "This is Our Town," of the old "Faith and Freedom" series. It tells the story of a lumber town in a part of the country that is never specifically named, but I suspect is Washington State. There is a bad storm, which causes severe flooding, and the town has to be evacuated. Several chapters cover the children's experiences while in a shelter in another city, and then it goes into their return. Houses destroyed. People missing, presumed (GASP!) dead. Even an explicit statement that someone did indeed drown.

I have also seen a later edition of the same book. Those chapters were completely edited out. We are constantly being told that children that age are not equipped to understand death. I say, FELGERCARB! (Fans of Battlestar Galactica know what that means; to the rest, context should tell you. ;D) My three-year-old brother had absolutely no problems understanding what it meant when Grandma died! We were taught about the Four Last Things (Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell) in the FIRST GRADE! And none of us needed counseling after hearing about such "traumatic" subjects.

It's about time we started speaking up. Our child are indeed to isolated from the real world; we're starting to find out how that affects them as the first of that generation enter the workforce. They have absolutely no idea of what is expected of them in the workplace; they expect to be praised and rewarded just for showing up. I could go on for hours, but I'd only be preaching to the choir.

Thanks you, thank you, THANK YOU for such an insightful article.

i think some of this has been much more (subversively) deliberate than we are tempted to give the (media) "instigators" credit for,...with a goal to turn commonsense definitions, moral guidelines, and natural order, over on their heads, so as to be made unrecognizable and thereby irrelevant, we've been handed these "bland" but "urgent" distractions and substitutes, and--of course--beginning in the earliest and most impressionable years,...who are the fools?,...we've traded "PC blah blah niceties" for potty/porn infested so-called humor/entertainment,...our poor children are and will continue to "pay the price,"...speak up, parents, and turn off the junk media,...spare your children,...love your children,...tell them the truth,...these "illusions" are about as innocent & safe for them as the "wolf-in-grandmother's-clothing" was for Little Red Ridinghood,...children swallow & believe just about everything they hear & see,...you have more power & influence, at least in your home, than you realize,...

My young, developmentally delayed (so they say...) son has lived his entire life near a very politically incorrect military base. People die here.

He is not yet six, and as I said developmentally delayed, and understands death rather well. That whole Afghanistan thing...Remembrance Day...the Crucifixion.

That children cannot, supposedly, handle death, is one of the excuses given for those 'Risen Jesus' crucifixes in Catholic classrooms.

I agree that kids who are too sheltered will have trouble handling the whole truth when they get exposed to it.

I raised 5 kids in the country and had no time for sanitizer. My kids ages are 17, 18, 20, 21, and 22. Needless to say, the older ones found lots of messy ways for the younger ones to explore their kingdom from God. They also ate raw cookie dough, share popsicles with siblings and friends and kissed numerous salamders. Now they are aunts, uncle and parent to a 7 month old and cannot wait until he is old enough to explore God's wonderful planet. I will hose all the kids off (including the adults) until the next adventure. More parents should care about tv, video, movie and radio inputs rather than the outside world. Didn't Jesus say what's outside is never clean but what comes from the inside is the problem?