Well kids, it's been a few weeks yet again since I've had time to get a post up for your general enjoyment and/or ridicule. The great news about it is that I have been hard at work on several projects and it looks like I'm going to have at least one more book out this year, if not two, based on how things move forward. Also, make sure you pay attention to the blog over the next day as I'll be launching my newest blog, The BigFellas Guide, sometime around mid-day on Tuesday, 10/2.
Now to get down to business. I've got a topic to discuss this week that, to be honest, I've struggled with for a few weeks now. My struggle came from the fact that I feel pretty passionately about this issue but, when viewed from a certain slant, my opinion could almost be seen as hypocritical. I've teeter-tottered back and forth about whether I'm even qualified to foist on opinion out there into the world on this subject. That all changed over the course of this last weekend, however, when I had the opportunity to discuss the topic with my twelve-year old niece. We'll talk more about that discussion later but, for now, suffice it to say that I've never been more convinced I was right on anything in a very long time as I am after that little talk.
Kids, our topic for today is what material is and is not appropriate for children.
Let me go ahead and get this out of the way to start with: I am not a parent, not yet anyway. There will be those who immediately disqualify anything I say because I'm not one and that is perfectly alright by me. They're entitled to their view just like I am, no matter how wrong they may be. I'm also probably going to piss some people off because I'm about to call them a bad parent or come down on their parenting decisions. To those folks I say tough shit. If you don't agree with me, fine, just make sure you're not mad because you know I'm actually right and you've fucked up somewhere along the way.
There's something else I need to frontload as well. The opinions I'm about to give, as I mentioned, may seem somewhat hypocritical in light of my body of work both current and forthcoming. Look, I'm the first one to realize and admit that no child under sixteen or so needs to be within arm's reach of my work. I write for an adult audience, pure and simple. I have two nieces on the threshhold of adolescence and believe me I would flip my shit on their parents if I ever found out either of them read my books until they were older. I have so far managed to slide over the fact that I have a regular blog with the older of the two as I don't think she's exactly ready to find out ol' uncle Brian can get a little off the chain on occasion (or I'm not ready for her to do so, one of the two), and the other one's parents read me regularly enough and are good enough parents that I know they'll keep her from my work for quite a while more.
Moving on, let me surmise what I feel in this simple sentence: let children be children. I mentioned a conversation with my twelve-year old niece this weekend earlier. We were discussing the fact that a lot of her friends are watching R rated movies already and, at least in my house, PG-13 is the cutoff for movies and T for video games until she gets older. Being somewhat silly I told her that as far as I was concerned she should still be watching cartoons about unicorns and teenage wizards. Shockingly enough she agreed with me. I don't think I've been happier to hear something in a long time.
Folks, I know that probably every last person reading the words I'm writing here started watching R rated movies around 12 or 13 years old, but hopefully they were sneaking around to do so at minimal volume in the living room in the middle of the night like I was. I know it's probably a bit of an old fashioned ideal but I just don't believe that kids need to be watching or exposed to adult content until they are at least closer to being adults. The absolute worst violation of this I've heard of lately was being told that a five and four year old were watching Sweeney Todd on a repetitive basis. Now don't get me wrong, that movie and even the musical are among the few Broadway offerings I really enjoy but let's be real here: who in their right fucking mind let's a young child watch bloody murder and cannibalism? I mean, seriously, what kind of pathetic ass parenting is that? I don't care how you try to deflect, sugar coat, or pander it off, the fact is you're exposing a young and impressionable mind to some seriously deranged behavior and developmental psychologists have shown over and over and over that this causes damage to young minds. It's too bad that particular form of child abuse doesn't fall to the DSS, you know?
The fact of it all is that today's early and preteen kid is so deeply inundated with media and has such wide access to anything under the sun that it really takes parental involvement to keep them safe and give them a chance to actually be a kid for as long as possible. My two youngest nieces are five and a newborn, respectively, and the kind of world that awaits them scares the hell out of me and they're not even my kids.
What age is the right age for these kids to start being allowed exposure to adult material? That's not my call, it belongs to their parents providing their parents are doing their job to start with. Personally I don't agree with buying a kid an M rated video game until they are at least 15, but judging by the number of foul mouthed, squeaky voiced douche monkeys on your average Call of Duty match, there are a lot of parents that don't share my view. Hey, sue me, I just really believe that having an actual childhood might actually be, you know, important and stuff.
More to come. Make sure you stay tuned for the launch of The BigFellas Guide later today!
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