I have a distinct memory from—I don’t know what year, but we were living in the South Florida house, so it was definitely pre-1979—and Rod Stewart’s hit at the time, “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” came on the radio. I started to sing it within earshot of my mother. I’m 9 or 10 years old. My mom listened, horrified.
“What a horrible message that song is giving!” she said.
“What?” I asked, uncertain of what she meant.
“He’s saying, ‘If you want my money and you think I’m sexy.’ What kind of message is that, that a woman will sleep with him if he’s rich?”
“No, mom!” I said exasperated. “He’s singing, ‘If you want my body and you think I’m sexy!”
“Oh!” my mom said, clearly not sure where to go with this. “Well, I guess that’s okay.”
My mother was never one to censor what I listened to/read. I remember during the Colorado years—so about ages 11 to 13—I checked Judy Blume’s Wifey out from the Boulder Public Library.
“This is not a children’s book!” the librarian said to me and my mother sternly.
“I do not censor what my daughter reads,” my mother told her back, just as sternly.
The librarian was correct. But then so was my mother.
Flash forward thirty years or so. On one hand, I try not to censor my children’s pop culture consumption, as evidenced by the F bomb my daughter dropped in the car today with two friends and their mother. I thank Cee Lo Green for that one.
On the other hand, I do try to warn them of road bumps. For instance, my not-yet-eight-year-old son saw a sign at the library of good books for boys. But this list was in the teen section.
“I think I’d like the book Spanking Shakespeare,” he tells me. “I saw it on the library list.”
I read the Amazon reviews. I make note of comments such as “obsession with masturbation, sex, drug-use and alcohol.” I tell my almost-third-grader, “You know how you hate it when people kiss on TV?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“Well, they do a lot of kissing in this book.”
“Ewwww!” Book effectively dismissed. At least for now.
But then there are times when things sneak up on you. The boy, the girl, and myself are all hooked on the upbeat song “Pump Up the Kicks” by Foster the People. I downloaded it onto everyone’s iPods and play it all the time in the kitchen. Who doesn’t dance to this song?
The other day, as I heard Pie singing the words, I started paying more attention. And I realized this chirpy little song is actually a horribly morose story about a kid shooting kids at his school, a la Columbine. Granted, this isn’t something I’d shelter them from, but I would think twice about singing it at the top of our lungs while we do our kitchen dance or at least I’d have thought of a good explanation for the lyrics that wouldn’t terrify them.
To censor or not to censor, that is the question. I prefer to err on the side of “not,” but then the world seems much scarier than it was when I was a child. School shootings, 9/11, cyberbullying, AIDS, all those things that simply didn’t exist when I was a kid.
How do you protect your kids yet still enjoy a great dance beat?
