First, I know I'm supposed to be on hiatus while my arm heals from surgery, but when something important comes up, I've just got to talk about it! Hence today's blog post. (Thank you hubs for lending your typing fingers)
So, here goes!
On June 4th, a
Wall Street Journal Article discusses if YA makes "darkness is too visible" to today's youth. The article spawned an outcry on twitter (#yasaves). As the mother of teenager, I felt the strong need to chime in.
When I first read the article, I thought it was getting off to a good start with the following:
"Reading about homicide doesn't turn a man into a murderer; reading about cheating on exams won't make a kid break the honor code."
But then the article threw me for a loop by saying:
"But the calculus that many parents make is less crude than that: It has to do with a child's happiness, moral development and tenderness of heart. Entertainment does not merely gratify taste, after all, but creates it."
Who ... what? Are you saying that the books my daughter reads is shaping her little mind? Giving her ideas? Making her crave certain things? Her reading is
developing her?
That's intense. And I'm sorry, Meghan, but you're wrong.
Do you have children? Do you know what it takes to raise them? Make them strong, independent beings, able to take care of themselves? Do you know how to give them a sense of hope and love? Teach them the difference from fact and fiction? Show them how to work through their problems? Do you talk to them? Know their problems? Help them resolve issues? Know what they are feeling? Are you the parent a parent needs to be?
Because THAT's what this all boils down to.
Before anyone goes all ape-shit on me, trust me, I UNDERSTAND how hard it is to be a parent. I was a latch-key kid. My parents probably couldn't tell you my favorite color, let alone who I hung out with or what I was feeling on any given day. And I was child who struggled. I was bullied like crazy, I did drugs, and I was a cutter. And I did it all because I didn't have anyone who understood. Or anyone who cared for that matter.
And that's where I strive to make a difference will my daughter. She is NOT a latch-key kid. And on the same note, I am NOT a helicopter parent. There must be a balance between the two. I am her friend, as well as her parent. She talks to me. Tells me how she feels and what she needs/wants. I know what she likes, dislikes, makes her hurt or sad. I know how she feels. And I help her.
If you are a parent who is worried that what your child reads will change the way they think or will guide them, then you're not doing your job as a parent. It's YOUR job to guide them, Meghan. Not literature.
Same goes for the #yasaves hashtag on twitter. I read some wonderful posts of people talking about how YA saved them as a teenagers. My heart went out to them. Because when they didn't have anyone else, they had the books. And that's kind of sad. Helpful, but still sad. So if a child had nothing else to show them the world will be okay, then what do they have?
Maybe I am naive. Maybe I am just crazy. But my daughter is who she is because of me. Not because of what she reads. And it will always be that way.
She reads some stuff that shocks even me. But I don't tell her not to. Why?
Because it's fiction.
The two examples Meghan pointed out in her article surprised me because they are vastly different. And for two very different reason.
One of her examples is what I would call flat-out fiction with no real moral, or message, or growth. It's a fun (sometimes confusing) read, but it's a prime example of FICTION in YA. No ulterior motive, just out-right creativeness that is in your face:
Andrew Smith's Marbury Lens
Here is how the article describes it:
"young Jack is drugged, abducted and nearly raped by a male captor. After escaping, he encounters a curious pair of glasses that transport him into an alternate world of almost unimaginable gore and cruelty. Moments after arriving he finds himself facing a wall of horrors, "covered with impaled heads and other dripping, black-rot body parts: hands, hearts, feet, ears, penises. Where the f— was this?" No happy ending to this one, either."
And the other example is puzzling. The article sights a YA book that has a message. Or, shows growth in the characters and how the MC's overcome obstacles and make themselves better. (These are the type of stories I like) The point is, this example show us how someone grows. Here's the blurb from the article:
Jackie Morse Kessler's book, Rage
"a girl's struggle with self-injury, teenage Missy's secret cutting turns nightmarish after she is the victim of a sadistic sexual prank. "She had sliced her arms to ribbons, but the badness remained, staining her insides like cancer. She had gouged her belly until it was a mess of meat and blood, but she still couldn't breathe." Missy survives, but only after a stint as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse."
There's a story with a *gasp* message! But YA
isn't all about the message. It's about GROWTH. What characters are faced with and what they do to overcome it. How they struggle and survive.
So two very different types of YA. Just an in-your-face-good (and sometimes frank) read. And a story with growth. Both are graphic. Both are intense. But both are different. And both are stories I'd let my daughter read. Because they are both FICTION.
And a parent knows how to teach their child the difference between FACT and FICTION.
Hey, even I know that there are stories my daughter will read and connect with. She'll feel attached them in some way that I don't. And that's still okay. That only means that the writer has meticulously captured that important YA voice that kids love. It means my daughter saw something in the characters that she loved or maybe even saw a little part of herself. And that's STILL okay.
Because the simple fact remains, YA doesn't shape my daughter. It shouldn't shape any child. That's my job.
~JD
