March 2, 2004
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Letting Her See Violence
I've learned two primary Art of Parenting lessons in the past 6.5 years:
- It's impossible not to judge others' parenting, but don't dwell overmuch on judgment. Note the differences, register them, and then look for the forest beyond the trees.
- Never defend your own parenting. Reconsider your choices and act accordingly, but never defend your choices to those who would judge.
I'm about to break both those rules.
Three wonderful mothers with three different parenting styles (all of which I admire deeply) once had three-year-olds when my eldest was three. One had a son who, when I visited to see a new sibling, tossed a plastic ball in the air, hit it unerringly with a large bat, and sent it whistling toward me ("Incoming!" yelled the dad cheerfully). The second has a son whose clever hands could, and were permitted to, wield grown-up knives and saws at an early age ("No, no," I'd say nervously to my own completely unskilled would-be copycat, as she reached for his tools). The third has a precocious daughter who met me in their livingroom one chill early winter day, holding a Newsweek and pointing to the livid image on the cover: "Lots of people died," she lisped sadly, pointing to the burning tower. She indicated the airplane headed for the second, and with a shrug and a resigned smile, added: "Bad driving!"
I love and admire my friends. In many ways, I think of them as better mothers than I am. In many ways, we are all just feeling our way. We've all made different choices. We've also all made judgments: me of them -- and them of me.
The latest occasion was our monthly book club. Long ago we'd meet with our babes-in-arms and talk about diapering and childcare and sleeplessness. Now we meet alone, and talk about grown-up books. But the talk almost always slips back into mothering before the farewell. Sunday, it honed in on movies, and what children should and shouldn't see. Someone mentioned a twelve-year-old who'd seen The Lord of the Rings. Heads were shaken. Mention was made of violence in entertainment translating to violence in real life. Sighs were sighed over the culpability of the media. Eyes were rolled over parental lack of insight and oversight.
I stared thoughtfully at the wall. Because my six-year-old just finished watching The Fellowship of the Ring. Only it wasn't like that, you know (it never is, is it?).
The oddest thing is that I'm an anti-media freak. My kids do not watch commercial tv. They do not watch Disney. They've never been in a movie theatre. They've seldom seen a cartoon, and then only "educational," and on video. Pretend weapons are frowned on in my house.
So how......?
It wasn't just that I'm a life-long Tolkein addict, and was looking to rob the cradle for another victim before her time. Really. And it wasn't just a happenstance set of events over which I seemed to lose control -- although it did begin that way. The kids asked where I'd gone, on my extremely rare few hours' time away during a weekend. I explained: the final movie from some books I'd always loved.
"I want to see it," demanded Ms. Six. "It's a grown-up movie," I explained, "but there's a first book that I could read to you. And then, later, the others. And you can see the movies after I've read all the books to you." I was thinking: years. I forgot my eldest has inherited my pig-headedness -- and an endless tolerance for the read word. We went through The Hobbit at record speed. I loved it. She loved it. We started on The Fellowship. It was harder going. I caved in to my baser instinct. "I'll just let you watch the birthday party part of the movie," I said, "since we've already read that part." We watched it on DVD on my laptop, curled on my bed, with her pressed into my body and eagerly eating up the lucious New Zealand Shire. We kept reading. We read through to the Council of Elrond. It was slow, with lots of High English and poetry. She began to fidget. "Okay," I said. "We can see the movie from the birthday party through the Council, if we make it through the reading." She re-focused. She earned her reward. We discussed the differences between the book and the movie. Which characters were like how we'd imagined them, and which were not. What things the movie left out that shouldn't have been left out. What parts of the plot had changed, and why. Which role we'd play if we had the chance. Who we'd love to meet in real life. We read more. We watched more. We read more....
By this time, it was obvious where I was headed, so I started creating ex-post facto logic. I want my children to meet evil, first, in a place where it is controllable, clear-cut, and absolutely imaginary. I want my children to appreciate deeply thoughtful prose. I want my children to understand the nature of art, and the difference between art in all fora. I want my children to first be scared when they are with me, pressed against me, so I can feel them tremble and then talk about it (she was scared about the cave troll, so I talked about the artist, and why he made the choices he did, and how you make a moving cartoon from a static picture. "He looked really real," she said dubiously. We made flip-books of stick-figures). I monitored her remembered dreams; her play-time. I made sure she wasn't obssessed or unduly worried. I........
Eschew judgment. Avoid defensiveness. I know. I know.
- It's impossible not to judge others' parenting, but don't dwell overmuch on judgment. Note the differences, register them, and then look for the forest beyond the trees.
Comments (31)
I don't think seeing violence in the media is enough to make one a violent person. I grew up with violent movies (war movies, spy movies, crime dramas, Looney Tunes) and am not a violent person. My son has grown up with the same, and he is not a violent person. Violence comes from abuse received personally, not watching fantasy on a screen. We screen our children from cruelty and GRATUITOUS violence more than from "violence" in general. We also try to protect them from nightmares, which is why our youngest has not seen any of the LOTR movies.
No judgement offered, no defense needed. Thank you for sharing that experience. I can picture you two cuddled up working your way through the tolkein experience.
That's going to be a wonderful memory for her. (Well okay, technically that's a judgement.
)
Every child is different. Some are able to handle things at younger ages than others. I think you made a great judgment call there
This is incredibly personal for me. My daughter's friends are all nuts about The Lord of the Rings movies and my daughter (age 9) begs me to let her see them. I am just not ready for that.
I respect your choice though and I think the way you watched the movie together was excellent.
I am more comfortable with nakedness and foul language than violence. I am taking my daughter to a movie about a dance company in a few weeks and I told her she could bring a friend. I expect that I will have to call and talk to the parents ahead of time about the content.
Love and death; good and evil. That's the stuff of the best stories. I doubt that violent movies or TV is enough to desensitize a kid unless it's fed in massive doses. I think it's good to have kids read or listen. It helps develop imagination.
I almost never watch TV. I've disliked network TV for a long time.
One more thing. If you get time, could you explain Feith, Faith, and Saucyvox to me?
I had something to say, but was distracted momentarily by the sheer enormity of the question SteveJ just asked up there.
Where was I?
Oh yes...you, beautiful woman, approached this challenge with the same thoughtfulness and presence of mind I have grown to respect so deeply. How wonderful that you watched it together, and discussed it. Violence came quite early to my reality and I admit it has skewed some of my thought processes...but at least one of my parents always attempted to discuss what I had seen or experienced and even if it erased some of my innocence, in the final analysis (so far, anyway
) I seem to have turned out okay.
,
DiDi
<LI>It's impossible not to judge others' parenting, but don't dwell overmuch on judgment. Note the differences, register them, and then look for the forest beyond the trees.
<LI>Never defend your own parenting. Reconsider your choices and act accordingly, but never defend your choices to those who would judge
Very well said. This has been my approach over the years. The constant choices and decisions that one must make through the years of parenting can drive one bonkers. I maintained my grip on sanity by convincing myself that it is the subtle nuances that make the lasting influence on our children. The general tone of love, patience, and support. The rest of the decisions are on a more superfluous level. These issues make small nudges to the outcome but are far out weighed by the child's individual personality and influences of the world in which we live. As much as we would like to protect our children from the world, we just can't. It is a losing battle in which the fight may actually do more harm than good.
Having said that, there is the media. For years I held two firm views about the media, TVs, movies, video games, etc: Children, from about 10 and older can watch network television with its minimal level of constraints or play a video game that contains violence and be able to separate make-believe stories from reality. And, the tenant pushed by the producers that media doesn't create social norms, it is just a reflection of society, is a bunch of whooey. The rather obvious contradictions in these two postion statements has gradually pushed me to a more central position. I've already rambled on too long for a blog comment so I'll sacrifice completeness for the sake of brevity. Children can be influenced badly by what they watch and how they play, they need varying levels of shielding from the mass of media. The level of shielding varys with age and child, but at some point you have to stand on the bank and watch as they swim across the pond by themselves. Also, the effect of deluging our young with constant sex and violence is not seen an a particular child's behavior (siting individuals on any issue just leads to endless debate), but in a general lowering of the bar as to what is safe and acceptable.
Whew...I'm done. Nicely written LMF. Six probably had more reading time with mom with just The Hobbit than many kids get in in their youth.
An addendum to my already overlong thoughts above: Now that we're into reading (but not yet watching) the Two Towers, I'm rethinking my approach. The Fellowship was a journey, with bad things that got beat off one-by-one, and a lot of thoughfulness and philosophical wondering in-between. But the Towers is a lot about big battles. I'm not sure I'm ready to have her see those. Still reconsidering, and re-reconsidering, and re-re-...........
i've never believed that violence in movies/programs was such a terrible thing; as disturbing as the images might be, and as inappropriate for certain ages, it's still a hell of a lot easier to explain that it's just for pretend, than it is to explain away the violence that's real, and all around us.
i think you've made an excellent start, found the perfectly child-brain-oriented method of easing from good vs. evil into the harder, less straightforward lessons she'll need to learn next.
P.P.S. completely off-topic, to answer SteveJ's question as I responded in his guestbook (with some rewriting for legibility, even):
Feithline, the Canadian-born and now, again, Canadian-base creater of SaucyVox, is a 30-ish writer/poet currently writing under the Xanga sobriquet "voice," among others.
I, Faith, am a U.S.-born, U.S.-based 40'ish working mother-of-two writing under the Xanga sobriquet 'lovingmy40s' and 'LMFortease,' among others.
We are two entirely different people, and although we've shared many a chat and a tale since we ran into each other over a year ago, we have never actually met, and we probably share as many differences as similarities. The similarity in our names, in any case, has no bearing on any other similarity (or difference)!
Parenting must really be the hardest thing ever.... second only to growing up of course.
It's a fine line we walk between teaching them the truth and shielding them from the bad stuff. I think you handled it beautifully.
Ah, that was an amazing compliment.
But I wouldn't wish the burdon of being me, unto anybody. lol.
And hey, all you need with kids is love right?
Love and...guilt.
But the second just comes naturally I think.
I work with troubled kids and the key to all the troubles generally speaking is parents that don;t take the time to sit down with their children and dicuss things.....anything.....My dad always let me read anything I wanted...if he thought is was beyond my years he would sit down with me and discuss it....like one adult would to another.......I felt respected and that I could take to him about anything...that is what a good parent is.....and you sound just like that kind of parent.
I applaud and admire the approach you took with Six.
As a child, we weren't shielded from violence, nudity, or language in movies or on TV. There were just more important things going on in our lives - namely, trying to get to the next day.
I have no idea what kind of approach I'll take with my children when 1) I have some kids, and 2) they get old enough to start in with all that stuff. Hopefully, it'll be a lot like yours.
You know .. we all do the best we can. Each person and child is different. In my home, one kid can watch certain types of shows, the other cant. I allow my daughter to watch those disgusting bloody as hell surgery shows. She loves them. She wants to know all she can about surgery and becoming a vet. My son will have nightmares if he saw it, so he doesnt.
I am raising MyKidz to be successful enough as adults to afford the therapy they might just need as a result of having been raised by their admittedly dysfunctional mother.
Seriously, parenting's HARD!
So many decisions that can backfire later on in life... and we don't know exactly how they'll be affected until so much later than when we made those decisions...
Moms... we're only human too, n'est pas?
All I know is that parenting is all about drawing distinctions. I do it, you do it, everybody does it. But you know what? Comedy's easy; parenting's hard.
I have not yet gotten to where I feel like I don't need to defend my parenting choices. I often don't defend them, but pretty much always feel like I should when they are different from those of the person I'm dealing with. I've thought about it often, and wondered how I can get past that.
For what it's worth, you inspire me to be a better mother.
children would have to learn about violence sometime. it's only the how and when that matters, and sometimes it comes sooner than anyone would ever want, and not in the form of book or movie, but via real life.
and so for me? yes: it is better that they learn about it in a controlled environment.
i guess its important to realise just as a parent has an individual approach - a child has its own individual needs and abilities... my child couldnt sit quietly at the cinema to see lord of the rings at 11, but managed it in the safety of her home six months later... compared with whats on tv nowadays i dont find it that upsetting, as most children know what does and doesnt really exist.
I myself am amazed that she hasn't asked to watch more of the television programs that are so popular with children of that age--spongebob, powerpuff girls, etc, etc, but instead wanted to see a Lord of the Rings movie. the girl's got more culture than me.
Before its resurgence in the mainstream mentality, the LOTR's trilogy was and is still considered literature. Now, its regulated to the Sci-FI sections because that is where people expect to find them in a bookstore. With that being said, I commend you and "six" for tackling Tolkien's works. What's funny, in the rhetorical sense, about literature is that one era's OHMYGOSH we should ban that book from our children becomes the next piece of literary meat to be digested in high schools across the country.
Following your instincts is the hardest part of parenting, I think. What a wise mother you are...
baby, there's a whole bunch o' kids that see real-life violence in their own homes and grow up to be good people. i'm one of 'em. i have no doubt your girl can deal with a bunch of computer-generated trolls.
by the way, the spoiled-ass 5-yr.-old child of someone whose parenting style is far different from my own just hit samuel in the face with a metal toy and busted his mouth. i think i'll continue to judge parents harshly if this is what comes around....
ALL I have learned in my nearly twenty years as a parent is that I don't really have any answers. My parents were almost as anti-media as you (not quite, but still, for the sixties... They began to loosen up more with each of the five of us, but I was oldest and therefore bore the brunt of every parental experiment). We all turned out okay.
We sheltered my kids too, in our turn (in some ways much more loosely than Pa 'n' Ma did, but in some ways even more stringently), and I am finding that I am reaping the dubious benefits of rearing the both of them in ways that are keeping them too close to the nest now. I used to think I was a horrible parent for rearing a son who made some of the decisions that mine did, but I realize that at some point I just had to let go... I am still learning to.
I don't know what my point is, other than to say that no matter how you meander along the waterways of parenthood, you are doing just fine. I, for one, am proud of you!
We have read several Grimms' fairy tales to our daughters, not with complete confidence about whether it was the right thing to do. How are children to learn about the real world if it what the let them see is always sanitized? How are they to know that it is OK that their own lives are not sanitary? Overprotecting our children does not keep them safe, but I think brings them up to feel that there is something wrong with them when they encounter something wrong.
This is not a judgment of you or anyone else, just part of my continual reworking of my own parenting philosophy.
*shrugs* I'm one of those non-thinking moms.
I took them to see the movies in the theater. During the first one, my 6 year old stood up and yelled "off , off, off with his head! " when the orc got his head chopped off in the woods. I thought it was funny, as did quite a few others. I also let my 9 year old check out Lord of the Flies from the library. He loved it, even the ugly parts and had better insight than alot of adults do. My 11 year old is currently trying to mimic Hilary Duff, finding her "girlness" after years of being a tomboy. I let them watch images of 9/11 on tv and we had long talks over what it meant, and how people felt. Sometimes I catch them reading the newspaper, with very serious little faces, thankfully they always come ask me if somethings bothering them.
My sister-in-law is exactly the opposite of me regarding this issue so we usually just don't talk about it. Heh, we get along just fine that way.
I'm not a parent, I don't play one on tv or anywhere else, and I don't expect to be fortunate enough to be one in this lifetime, so I guess you should take my opinion with a grain of salt, but here goes anyhow:
Parents who take the time to teach their kids how to think about what they're reading/hearing/seeing wouldn't seem to be the ones struggling with issues like "will violent content make my kids violent?". I really love your approach to parenting as seen in your blog and your quiet confidence that you know your children better than anyone else and are therefore not bound by ridiculous absolute rules about what is appropriate for them when.
And while I'm "noveling" in your blog and before I forget it again, I'd just like to say that every once in a while I think about "thwee walks off sadly." and just dissolve in a fit of giggles. Thank you for that.
Faith, if the parent of the 12 year old took half as much time with her child as you have taken with your 6 year old, that 12 year old would be MORE than ready to view the grown-up movie. It's all about context I think.
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