General Etiquette > Family and Children

Awkward reading experience

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pryncsskittyn:
I'm not really sure where to put this one, I guess it falls under "family". 

Please, Mod's, I've read TOS to see if it's appropriate, if you deem it isn't, I won't be offended by it's removal.  I fully respect your decisions here and am not looking to start an argument or fight with it, merely a discussion.

Now, this isn't a problem for me, but was definitely a "surprise" and left me feeling a little uneasy since I didn't know how to explain it properly... though my son didn't ask anything.

My son and I are library kids (I practically grew up in the one in my home town, and the amphitheatre behind it is where I'm getting married in the fall).  We visit the library every Saturday and each bring home 3 or 4 books.  This last Saturday a friend and I were discussing books so we allowed my DS, who is almost 7, to go ahead downstairs to the children's room to pick out his own books.
DS returns with 5 books and I check them out and off we go.  I've never thought of looking over the books he chooses, and we'll read anything, and looking back, I would have let him get it anyway, I'm a firm believer in freedom of expression and speech.  So last night he pulls out the last book in his collection from the library before bed, he's snuggled in bed ready for story time...

The book was called "King & King & Family" . It wasn't until I started reading it that I got my "surprise".  The story is about Two "Kings" that get married, journey into the jungle on their honeymoon, visit all sorts of animals, then come home.  Once they get home a "Jungle Girl" pops out of their suitcase and they adopt her and she becomes the Princess.  The End.

My son hasn't said anything about the story, and I read it as if it were perfectly normal, so he doesn't know I feel awkward with it.  I'm always open to discussing books, and was really expecting an discussion to emerge from this, it's yet to happen.

Please note, I'm not prejudice against anyone or anything, I have no problem teaching my son to respect everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity or sexual orientation. We live in Massachusetts, where gay marriage is legal to residents, so I know that eventually he'll encounter it. I was just taken by surprise that this sort of thing was incorporated into a book targeted to his age range... I guess I hadn't ever thought about it.

Just wondering if I'm off key with my reaction to this and what others might think if they'd been in my position.

Tabris:
I've encountered this with Winnie The Pooh books that advocate conformity, Clifford books that advocate rudeness, and several books that advocate young girls de-selfing in order to protect their friends' feelings.

You know what I do? I lose the book. I shelve it, my kid forgets it, and I send it back to the library at the next dropoff.

Sometimes we discuss why the character in a book was rude ("Should she have invited herself on that picnic?") and sometimes we discuss how the character could have handled it better ("Why did she feel she had to find someone to be with just because someone said it was twos-day? Could she maybe have joined some of her friends and asked if they wanted her to play?") but many times, if I just don't like the book, it gets the disappearing treatment.

I think you handled it well--you read it and didn't make a big deal of it, and now you can send the book back to the library and fail to check it out again.

caranfin:
True confession time... I let my 7-year-old watch The Simpsons. And she has seen the episode where Selma (or is it Patty?) marries another woman. And I kept waiting for her to say something about it, but she never did. Anyway, my response would be that sometimes a man and a man fall in love, just like daddy and mommy were a man and woman who fell in love. That's probably all a 7-year-old needs or wants to know. Personally, I think a children's book with g*a*y characters is a good thing, as are books about interracial and interfaith families, stepsiblings, adopted children, etc. It's good (IMHO) to learn about the different ways to build a family.

pryncsskittyn:
Thank you.  I'm glad that my reaction isn't seen as wrong.. and I'm glad it didn't result in a conversation.  Even others have mentioned that my son has a habit of asking really strange questions.  He seems to want more than just the "simple answer"... no matter how well I try to explain things.

I have checked out books on step-families (my son is going to be the step-child once I'm married), and found them to be much less informational than I wished.  I guess 30 years ago parents were thinking the same thing when they saw those books on shelves.

MerryRaven:
You know unless he asks I wouldn't even worry about it.

My parents let me read anything I wanted to of course this was in the 60's and there wasn't that much about alternative lifestyles in the easy readers.

But when I was 10, 11, and 12 I was reading adult books from the library.

And I didn't realize until I re-read some of the books as an adult that I really didn't get all the "adult" meanings and themes.

I noticed this with my own kids too who read books I thought were a bit adult for them and what I have found is unless it is in a context that is familiar to you, it just goes over your head. 

So two lions got married.  He barely knows what married is and of course its a fantasy because lions don't get married.  And how many real lions has he seen?  He might think that is normal behavior for fantasy lions.

When difficult things would come up, I would explain to my kids that some books are about real things like boats and birds and trees and real people and some books were stories that were made up, just pretend.

In this case, if you are called upon to explain it or any other fiction book, I would just say that that it is just a story that someone made up.  You could even at that point let him know that he could make up a story to and assist him in doing that if he wanted to also. 

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