{the fifth freedom}

That time of year again, the time to consider all the reasons thinking parents and teachers and librarians take their courage into their hands, breathe deeply, and trust people to read whatever they’d like, and then unleash those readers onto the world.

This concept only doesn’t take courage if you’re not a person in charge of the character formation of others.* I expect it must be difficult at times to realize that the world shoots information into a child’s ears and eyes at a rate which cannot be matched by the sane and rational and safe adults in their midst. Parents give birth and realize that Thing One or Thing Two comes with its own personality and its own ideas, and that though they can guide it, it’s only theirs for a given value of theirs. Children are never owned.

And then, they grow up and adults who are trying to own their brains and the brains of their child’s classmate, with loving intent, I am very sure, try to block them from reading certain things.

Book banning is appallingly, gallingly easy for me to understand. I am a total control freak. I could see, if I were the parent of a Thing of my own, that I would want all to be perfect for it. I would want it to be ultimately happy, successful and wise, and it would cause me some moments of …Hmm, should they really be reading that? if I saw my imaginary child with a book I hated — or feared. Imagine my young Thing wanting to read Twilight? or some V.C. Andrews? Or some Kurt Vonnegut? Imagine my eight year old Thing wanting to read The Graveyard Book or the newest Lane Smith that has that questionable-word-punchline?

Would I, like my parents, figure that for Christian reasons they should control my reading and restrict it to nonfictional channels, hoping to fix my mind on “whatever is true?” Would I storm my Thing’s classroom and demand the the principal, the board, the district chair make that evil teacher stop giving those innocent children such immoral books that deal with witches and vampires and zombies and unicorns?

It comes down, for me, to this question: Do I really believe in freedom of choice?

Every year, I am glad for this week which makes me think of first The Four Freedoms – not just Roosevelt’s speech, but the Rockwell paintings which illustrate those freedoms, and then I ponder what I think of as the fifth one – freedom to choose. Every year, I question myself. May I continue to be able to examine my own motives – even if someday my kids are non-imaginary – and say, “Yes. I believe.

It’s a hard question, the question of freedom not just for yourself, but allowing that to others who are yours to supervise and oversee and guide. If you’re a parent, you must think about it carefully. If you value freedom for all, you know what the right answer is, yes?

Happy Banned Books Week.

* I am always galled when people who have no children in a school or district, no responsibility for anyone’s children (except in their own heads where obviously they’ve elevated themselves to the position of Village Elder in that allegorical village that it takes to raise a child) and/or no reason to snatch books from library shelves and black-out “bad” words and otherwise get all het up based on some idea of alleged moral superiority — I do loathe seeing those people get involved with book bans. Their “who will save the children” mentality — and their need to make sure we all know it will be THEM and likeminded people who saves everyone – that really troubles me. Such community blowhards have nothing to do with the kids, to my mind. It’s all about control over other people. I want to tell them, “Cut that out. Get a hobby. Sit down and read a book!”