When I was growing up, there were certain books on my mother’s bookshelf that were forbidden to me and my best friend Grace. I always thought this was odd since my mother had been an English teacher and always encouraged reading in our home.
One of the first “big girl” privileges Grace and I earned was the right to walk the six blocks to the city library every Saturday to exchange our Wizard of Oz and Bobbsey Twins books for the next in the series.
Our library cards were the first adult ID that we possessed. Checking a book out of the library without a parent around to back us up was one of the first things we were ever allowed to do on our own. Heady times indeed.
Of course, it was inevitable that one day the Wizard of Oz would no longer appeal to our more grown up and refined senses. We moved on to Cherry Ames and Nancy Drew but even they eventually paled. As our bodies started changing, so did our taste in literature. Suddenly boys kissing girls in books didn’t seem so yucky. It didn’t make us giggle any longer. It just made us get quiet and pay much more attention to the words.
As inevitably happens, we thought we were a lot more grown up than our parents thought we were. So when I asked my mother why I couldn’t read the books on that one shelf, her response was typical of mothers throughout the ages.
“Because I said so.”
Now back when I was 10 that might have held me somewhat. But I was all grown up and 11 now, almost 12, and all that statement did was frustrate me. What in the name of all that was good and holy could those books possibly contain that my mother didn’t want me to read? This question became an obsession. Let me assure our more squeamish readers that my mother would no more have possessed pornography than she would have worshipped the devil so that was not even a consideration. And with the forbidden books carrying titles like “Gentian Hill” and “Green Dolphin Street”, it wasn’t as if they were subversive literature.
So why couldn’t I read them?
I’m sure it will come as no surprise to any parent reading this column that I eventually stole into the room while my parents were out one night. I got one of the forbidden books and put another in its place so mom wouldn’t notice anything missing. I went to my room, opened the book and read it till I heard mom and dad coming home.
I hid the book, grabbed the decoy I had ready and when they came to kiss me goodnight, they found their sweet little daughter thoroughly engrossed in the latest Hardy Boys mystery. As soon as I heard their lights go out, mine went back on. I didn’t stop till I’d read the whole book.
It was basically a love story in which not everyone was necessarily married to the person they loved and some women were making a living out of loving men. Not that I understood all that at the time. We are talking about a 12-year-old in the 1950s who went to parochial school. There were whole chapters that I didn’t get. Which of course made the ultimate outcome of the story somewhat of a puzzle.
But I didn’t care. I had read the forbidden book and was pretty sure that it had somehow advanced my quest for adult status. I knew for sure that it put me light years ahead of my friend Grace who had spent the same weekend with dull old Cherry Ames.
The point of this story is that forbidding me the book just made it that much more tempting. Had my mother told me I could read it so long as I discussed it with her, I would probably not have bothered.
By the time I was 12 and reading Gone With The Wind, I understood almost everything I read in the book. Mother had stopped censoring my reading because she realized it was better to guide me through this rather than try to forbid it altogether.
Since a new Harry Potter book is coming out this summer, I hope this column might give some parents food for thought when their kids ask to read it – especially those parents who are sure it is uncensored Satanism in print.
Read it with them. Find out what they think about it and help answer the questions it raises. You may be surprised at how what scares you to death is just a good story to them.
One way or another the world is going to influence your children. Isn’t it better for you to be there to guide them when that influence hits.