"No, Billy, the last little piggy was able to start a successful career as a manager and is married with 3 kids! He didn't cry 'wee wee wee' and ran all the way home!"
I'm going to start off by saying this: I don't like lying to children.
Children, in my opinion, should be given honest answers in order to develop properly and become good people. It doesn't matter that children need to be placed in a bubble of innocence so their minds won't be "corrupted" or whatever, mostly because you can give children honest answers about some features of life without their innocence being "ruined" (such as why girls or people of color aren't represented very much in the media). I'm not saying that you should discuss topics such as sex and drugs with your 5-year old, but telling them why failing can help them achieve success in the future or why Bobby in the best book ever didn't make the wisest of decisions can help children become better people. (after all, the sex-and-drugs discussions can wait until middle school).
Speaking of Bobby from the best book ever, I was browsing through the internet recently and I found this article. Being a strong opposer of censorship (though the reason why can wait for another post), I was intrigued, and clicked on the link to read it. As I read it, I couldn't help but feel appalled at what the writer of the author believes to be a good method of teaching good morals to her son: censoring the material of books to ensure that he's taught good morals. She described how she was shocked when she read one of her childhood favorites, Pierre, and how she didn't want to teach her son to say "I don't care!". So, what does she do? She changes it so that the main character of the book says "I care!", along with other "wonderful" edits to other classics.
Let me start by addressing the author's edit to Pierre: Not only, in terms of what she reveals in the article, do the edits make absolutely no sense (Like, we know that Pierre cares now; but what the hell does he want for breakfast?), but it warps the moral the book is trying to teach: You should probably care. That, in my opinion, is a good moral for children (and one I probably should've learned during the first half of my sophomore year of high school), and it's horrible that someone would think that it's inadequate for their children or, even worse, that that's not the moral at all (and the author of the article states: "[...]at least another day has passed without my child learning that some people simply do not care." Ma'am, have you ever been to an urban public high school? There are children there that care less than, well, Pierre.).
Another paragraph in the article describes how some other parents attempt to censor words such as "stupid" and "fat", which is quite pathetic, in my opinion. Words like those shouldn't be censored just because they are used. Yes, they aren't good words for children to say, but why try and pretend that those words don't even exist? Why not have a discussion with your child as to why you shouldn't say "stupid" or "fat"? Wouldn't that be a more effective way to make sure that children learn better lessons? If you never expose your child to those words, how would they react if they were called "stupid: or "fat"?
Then, another parent's method of censoring gender stereotypes came around, with the mentioning of the book Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site (which, by the way, was written by a woman) and how the parent in question makes half of the trucks in the book female. Here's the deal: I support more female representation in fiction, but censoring someone's work is not the way to bring about the representation. Remember how I mentioned that this book was written by a woman? How about mentioning that and saying that both boys and girls can be authors? How about saying that girls can be trucks too, but they were all at a different construction site? Just plastering some "she's" around the book will not spread the message in the correct way.
Then comes the part that shocked me the most: Parents editing characters because they believe children will mock their behavior. I'm not saying that this never happened (When I was 4 or 5, I began to admire a female super heroine in the media), but censoring the actions of characters is not necessarily the way to teach children to not act like them. One parent mentioned in the article even censored one of my favorite children's books of all time, Eloise, because the titular character was "rude". I remember reading Eloise when I was very little, and thinking of her as a "funny" character instead of a role model. Did I imitate her behavior? Not according to my parents. Did I start acting like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes when I started reading that? Hell no! These parents are being quite the hypocrites when they are changing entire characters to share their morals, and once again, they seem to ignore the power of discussing why a character's behavior is inappropriate with their children.
The author then describes how she can discuss topics such as sexuality and bodily functions with her son, but again, stammers when she has to read her child something she morally objects to. However, despite the fact that I applaud her for discussing those kinds of topics with her child, I can't help but say that the author is still putting her child in a protective "bubble". There are several problems with putting your child in one of those bubbles, regardless of how they're put in them (whether it be censoring their media or not openly discussing topics like sexuality with them).
Overall, I guess my opinion on this parent's tactic to teach morals is pretty obvious. If you want to tell your kid that Bobby from the best book ever is not doing the correct actions, just discuss it with your child! It doesn't take that long to say "People aren't perfect; Bobby made a poor decision, but he learned this-and-that." or "Don't worry, Sally! Even though all of the characters in this book are boys, girls are just as capable at doing this!". Morals exist for a reason, and the art of conversation can do so much more than just simply censoring books.
Don't lie to your children, people.
