Rant: My kid's nightmare from 'Maus' has me backing book bans

I went to a school board meeting last week about removing 'Maus' from the 8th grade reading list. The book has naked mice and violent scenes that I found shocking. Everyone else there was yelling about free speech and history, but I sat there thinking about my daughter, who is only 13. She told me the images gave her nightmares, so how is that educational? People act like banning books is always bad, but they forget about kids' minds. I think sometimes we need to say no to protect them. This debate made me see that censorship can come from a place of love, not control.

3 comments

3 Comments

elliotbarnes1mo ago

Watch parents try to shield kids from anything dark or hard, like skipping the Holocaust lesson in school because it's too sad. Then these kids grow up not getting why racism still exists or how wars start. It happened with my nephew's school cutting out To Kill a Mockingbird for bad words, so they missed the point about unfairness. Protecting feelings now just makes it harder for them to deal with real life later. We can't bubble wrap every childhood without paying for it down the road.

ivan621mo ago

So we're raising kids who think racism was solved with a few nice speeches? Skip the hard lessons and they'll be shocked when life isn't fair. But hey, at least their feelings are safe until reality hits.

adam_nelson1mo ago

In our town's middle school, they watered down the WWII chapter to just dates and battles, no Holocaust mention at all. I had to sit with my kid and fill in the gaps using books and documentaries, which was a wake-up call. What works is easing into tough topics with real stories, not hiding them, like @ivan62 pointed out about racism seeming solved. Start young with basic ideas of fairness and add more detail each year. (Seriously, kids can handle more than we think if we frame it right.) Skipping the hard stuff now just means they'll struggle to make sense of bigger issues later, like why people still fight over race or power.