Bookshelves, and What You Find There

[tahmthelame]

(Cross-posted to my other journal over here)

We're expecting our first kid in about five and a half months (gulp) and since I'm at a point where moving around and doing things doesn't actually make me exhausted or sick at the moment, I decided to take advantage of it and start going through our bookshelves to purge them.  (I know I have plenty of

Comments

[ladyarkham]

I think you have the right idea.

I wish my parents had been more aware of what I was reading, and had been willing to talk to me about it. The older audience Judy Blume books really messed with my mind and perceptions of puberty when I was, you know, seven or eight. I don't know if my mom ever knew they were any different than "Superfudge."

I applaud your better judgement in doing something about this!

[tahmthelame]

Similarly for me; I never really had anyone to talk to about books, except A. (Which is probably why our reading interests are so similar.)

I was thinking about this after I posted, the whole idea of being available to talk to the kid about what they're reading, and to encourage them to talk to me. I assume it would be really really hard for parents to always keep up with what kids are reading (which probably requires a post of its own), but I really want to make an effort to be engaged in what they read.

[ladyarkham]

I feel like if you can get your kids excited about telling you what they're reading, you'll be OK. My mom was pretty actively dismissive of what I was reading, so I never had conversations with her about it. The only time I did was when I told her that "The Dark is Rising" seemed to be making fun of Christians a little and it was making me feel weird, and she told me not to read that series anymore. It was a good five years and more before I went back to it - so it was effective.

[irked_indeed]

This is kind of a personal issue for me in some ways. I read *a ton* when I was younger, but I didn't have a lot of reading guidance that I can recall. (Well, I do remember in second grade being really irked because the librarian wouldn't let me into the section of the library where the third and fourth graders could go. I was way beyond Berenstein Bears at that point and had ready every one of them anyway, and I was bored with the "baby" books that were in our section. I was reading the books my sister brought home by then and she would have been in fifth grade. So. Annoying.)Hee, yes. My mom talks about how the school librarian asked to talk to her, saying she was worried about me. "He just doesn't like to read anymore

[tahmthelame]

Out of curiosity, what kept you from reading off of your dad's shelf? And did you ever end up picking out books from there on the sly? I guess what I'm wondering is whether there were ever stated consequences or whether the books were just not interesting to you or whether you were just a very obedient child.

[irked_indeed]

*snerks* My sister would get a kick out of that last theory.

I guess part of it was that, if there was anything interesting stuff there, it was pretty sparse - lots of books on birdwatching and medicine and biblical scholarship and old English poetry... but not much that caught my interest before age 12 or so. I grabbed a book once or twice, but it wasn't really an off-limits shelf, just a largely boring one. I had my books, dad had his, and neither of us was really interested in the other's.

Maybe that wouldn't cross over directly to your situation - again, there just wasn't much my parents had that they would have minded me getting into, I think.

[scionofgrace]

I think I would probably do the same as you, keeping in mind that EVERY child who reads voraciously will, regardless of their parents' efforts, manage to read something inappropriate. (I can think of two books I should not have read when I did; possibly three.)

BTW: I picked up that you and Lucas were expecting via your Facebook, but did you ever make an announcement here? I feel like I must have missed something. (Also, congratulations! Of course. Because you two will be awesome parents.)

[tahmthelame]

Agreed - no matter what, if the kid is a reader, the kid will read something they're not ready for. I just hope to minimize that number!

I did put something up on here, but the important info was kind of buried in the middle of the post about crocheting a Tardis afghan, haha, so it was easily missed. But thank you! :)