I read an interesting article in the Telegraph about the practice of ‘pinkwashing,’ which in this context refers to parents surreptitiously editing books that they read to their children. Apparently, this became a source of heated debate in the comment section of the New York Times‘ parenting blog, with one shrill commenter blurbling on about how “Censorship of the written word should never be an option.”
That might be true if we were talking about the government, but we’re talking about parents reading to their kids, and frankly, I don’t understand why people are getting their panties in a twist over this (though I suppose “this is the Internet” is probably enough of an explanation).
Many years ago, my aunt gave me a copy of Anne Rice’s The Mummy or Ramses the Damned. I don’t remember exactly how old I was at the time, but I was waaaaay too young for a book like that (I was probably younger than 10; I was definitely still in elementary school). I really wanted to read it, but my mother insisted on reading it to me. This let her make a large number of strategic edits in the process. Instead of reading a particularly explicit love scene, she simply said that Ramses and Julie went into the pyramid and “became very good friends.” I didn’t give it a second thought at the time, and it wasn’t until many years later that she ‘fessed up.
Was she right to “censor” Anne Rice like that? Absolutely. As a parent, it was her job to decide what was or was not appropriate for me until I reached the point where I could figure that out for myself. I think the same principles apply even if a parent is reading a book that’s ostensibly for children. Parents presumably know what their kid can or cannot handle, an author doesn’t.
Codex Lochianus 