Have you read the Motherlode piece “Child-Proofing ‘Harry Potter'” that ran on The New York Times website?
No? You can read it here, but in a nutshell, mother/author/writer Lynn Messina laments that “’Harry Potter’ presents itself for pinkwashing from almost the first page,” when she started reading it to her 5-year-old son.
Prior to today, “pinkwashing” meant the act of using breast cancer to guilt consumers into buying a product. But the oh-so-original Messina has hijacked this term, crushed it up into little bitty pieces, and made it her own. Here’s her rationale.
I do this sort of on-the-fly editing all the time when reading to my 5-year-old. I call it “pinkwashing” after the scene in “Pinkalicious” in which the poor, discolored child must stomach horrible green vegetables as a cure for her unfortunate pinkness. She chokes down artichokes, gags on grapes and burps up brussels sprouts. The passage serves important narrative and stylistic functions, of course, but Emmett loves artichokes, grapes and brussels sprouts. He never complains about eating them, so rather than hint at a generation-long struggle against the tyranny of green veggies, I replace the negative verbs with positive ones. Pinkwashing.
There are so many things that are teeth-clench worthy in her piece, but the thing that has been burrowing deeply in my craw is the precious hypocrisy. I see it played out over and over again in real life and now in the HTML of The New York Times. Parents who believe with all their hearts they have above average offspring, are the same parents who have no problem altering reality to suit their need to skirt difficult topics.
I would title this syndrome “My Child Is A Genius Until I Need to Dupe Him Then Of Course I’m The Only Genius In The Room.” Honestly, you can’t claim the next MIT prodigy in your status updates, then feed him lies fit for a simpleton to deal with tough situations.
Yes, I said lie. It’s one thing to skip a page of a picture book with your toddler to hasten the arrival of bedtime. It’s another thing to homogenize the plot and theme of a literary classic to “protect” your child or to avoid putting your foot down.
Messina claims she thoughtfully considered whether her child was too young when she “gave in to Emmett’s pleadings to read the book.” She even claims to have read the series herself. However, she might be the only person in the world who thought the plot of Harry Potter was about the rescuing of an orphan. She forgot about the dark magic, evil, and murderously high body count.
So what did Messina do when she became flustered by her mistake? She edited on the fly, smoothing away all that nasty plot “stuff” that makes “Harry Potter” the greatness that it is.
Here is what she could have done. She could have looked Emmett in the eyes and said, “I have made a mistake. This book is not for a 5-year-old boy. It is a book that I want us to share together once you can read.”
Would he have whined and protested? Probably. But he would have learned some real lessons, too. He would have learned that people make mistakes. He would have learned you don’t have to be perfect. He would have learned that his mother respects him enough to tell him the truth.
I performed my own stumbling act when my daughter was in 5th grade. She wanted to read the Twilight trilogy because she had just finished the Harry Potter books and was forlornly casting about for a series to read. But almost more importantly, her friend was reading it, too. I read the first two books as if I was downing a bag of chips before I let her start. As she was beginning book two, I began book three, “Eclipse.” Oh my. Things ramped up quickly with supernatural marital sex and the most gruesome childbirth ever. I twitched with my desire to forbid her to read it or to black out passages, but I don’t have that kind of hubris. She could just read her friend’s copy at school. I put away my marker and got out my paperclips instead. I marked every place where she needed to stop and come to me for a discussion. We ended up having the most interesting “birds and bees” talks comparing and contrasting the supernatural with reality. It also set the precedent that I was open for discussion and that I trusted my daughter’s intelligence.
In Messina’s case, she has shelved the second book, “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” for now. It seems like the right thing to do since even she has realized the books were not meant for children as young as hers. But I am so curious to see how it plays out when she deems the time right to carry on with the series. Will they re-read the first book correctly or will they forge ahead tripping on the messy stack of edits she created the first time? I suspect her son is a bright boy and either way, she’ll have some explaining to do and she has risked planting a little seed of distrust.
One of Messina’s “household themes” is “accepting the consequences of one’s actions.” She is going to have to do just that. You have to choose whether your child is intelligent or a dupe. You can’t have it both ways. It’s about respect, not your convenience.
-Ellen
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For another article on “Pinkwashing” check out Moms Who Drink and Swear: Chicago Edition, Why I think Pinkwashing is bullsh*t. Nicole introduced me to The New York Times article.
i think i love you.
This situation reminds me of that episode of Friends where Phoebe reveals that her mom always turned off movies before the sad or difficult parts. She thought Old Yeller was a happy little dog movie well into adulthood. How on earth are kids going to handle the challenges of life if they think everything is sweet and lovely all the time? Part of the beauty of Harry Potter is that the kid has to face ENORMOUS obstacles, make incredibly difficult decisions, and stay true to himself and his belief in the power of good over evil. I hope my kids never have to fight an evil sorceress or escape from angry goblins, but when it comes time for them to fight whatever battles come at them in life, I want them to be prepared. But all that aside, it is shameful to censor the Harry Potter books. Kids just shouldn’t read them until they can fully appreciate them.
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KATE! I had the same Friends flashback!
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So well said. Thank you. I view literature as “practice” for real life much of the time. No one ever accuses anyone of being too well read.
Love the Friends reference. So true. Ellen
This is why I love you guys. You took the words right out of my mouth!
Thank you. The words were spilling onto my computer, that is for sure. Ellen
Wow. I am not a fan of that AT ALL. I don’t lie to my son, ever. I can’t imagine ruining Harry Potter for him just because he said “pretty please.” I’ve had to tell him from time to time that he’s too young for something, and he accepts that, because he trusts me. Why does he trust me? Because I’m honest, and he knows it.
This reminds me of a book someone gave him when he was one or two. It was an introduction to some of the Marvel super heroes. The book stated that when the Incredible Hulk “got excited,” he “grew big and jumped up and down.” Yeah, they “pinkwashed” anger and smashing. I threw that book in the damn trash.
It is okay to say to no. Not everything is appropriate for every age.
And wow, the Hulk was pinkwashed? That kind of takes all of the moral lessons away, doesn’t it? Ellen
Thank you for writing this. My curiosity was UP! But I really could not read that other response. 🙂
And I agree with your perspective!
I love Moms Who Drink and Swear. It is in her name that there will be curse words so I am prepared when I go over there. But I really should link to her piece, she got me on this “pinkwashed” train. Ellen
My four-year-old loves that Pinkalicious book. Also, she still loves green vegetables. My six-year-old has read (with me) the first two Harry Potter books, and has seen the first three movies. We stopped there until he’s older because of the subject matter.
Thank you for writing this post. I am so glad to hear that I’m not the only one who trusts her kids with possibly tough topics. Sometimes it truly feels like I’m alone in that.
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I feel like if I believe my children are intelligent, then I have to treat them like they are intelligent all of the time. Also, I need to show them how to navigate the world. Literature is great tool for that.
You are not alone. 🙂 Ellen
I AM raising a genius (did my sarcasm font work there??). Seriously, my kid is a huge reader and nothing has been off limits for him ever. (I never had off limits books and I didn’t get too screwed up.) He’ll talk to me about his books and I’ve read most of them first, so we can have great discussions. He’s already asking for Hunger Games. He’s in third grade. I’m thinking of letting him read it next year.
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Your sarcasm font works perfectly!
If you’re going to raise a reader, a curious mind, and not someone who thinks the world is a terrifying place full of forbidden, illicit things, you might have to have those discussions.
Isn’t one of the great things about being a reader revisiting books later on? I JUST re-read some Judy Blume books and lo and behold there were MANY situations that I didn’t remember from my 5th grade readings. How wonderful to be able to read a favorite on two different levels.
I hope he loves the Hunger Games.
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I just don’t feel like I can truly censor anything. Kids spend a lot of time out of your direct line of sight once they start school. I feel much better about giving my kids the skill set to interpret things.
We had some awesome Hunger Games discussions. We talked about the power vacuum and suffering in Germany that provided fertile ground for the rise of Hitler.
One thing about Hunger Games. I highly recommend the books before the movies. The violence in the movies is startling if you don’t have the background and context from the books.
Ellen
I am so glad I found you two. Sensible parents are few and far between in my orbit. My little one is four, and we recently finished Little House in the Big Woods. In the second chapter Pa Ingalls tried to save the family pig from the bear. He failed and the family had plenty of bacon that winter. That passage was a conversation starter about life’s difficulties and perseverance. Sadly those kids living in pinkwashed worlds can’t practice and hone these skills before they really need them.
Literature is a “safe” place to learn about the world. Glad you found us too.
Ellen
LOVE this! Sharing this out EVERYWHERE because EVERYONE should read it. Sorry for all of the shouting, but this is just so freakin’ awesome and I figured I’d ‘pinkwash’ out my celebratory f-bombs and just shout instead!
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Now THAT is a great use of “pinkwashing.” Ha! Thanks for sharing. Ellen
Oh, yes! Open discussion is so much more valuable than shielding your child from everything. Someday they’ll encounter something contrary to their world view, and they won’t do what to do with it if we don’t teach them when they are young.
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In reality, shielding kids often turns into the parent burying his or her head in the sand.
Ellen
I’m normally not one to jump on a blogger train, but I’ve been working on a post because this really got me riled as well. If you don’t think your child is ready for something – don’t introduce it. YOU are the parent. I wasn’t allowed to watch Dirty Dancing for YEARS. My mom didn’t think it was appropriate. Finally, I saw it at a slumber party and couldn’t figure out what was so bad about it. I confessed to my mom and she asked if I had any questions. I didn’t – I just told her that I thought they were good dancers. That’s right – a backroom abortion went completely over my head. Still her right to say no, I’m not saying I was in the right to watch it, but her fears were unfounded.
There was a lot of discussion at the school I used to work in about the Hunger Games. The fifth graders were obsessed. One mom said that she’d be fine with her daughter reading the Twilight books, but would never OK Hunger Games because of the violence. Others said that they were ok with the discussion of the politics of the Hunger Games but didn’t like the idea of Twilight. Personally, I think it should be up to the individual parent and child. If your kid can handle it, if your kid is open enough, go for it. If not, ask them to wait.
But no one mentioned “pinkwashing” either of these.
Right now my girls are little and all we do are read alouds. They are being introduced to these stories for the first time and it is entirely up to me. I would NEVER change a piece of literature because I didn’t like it. My daughter was very scared of Snow White. I understand that. So we put it away for now. Done. But I didn’t magically make the Evil Queen different. It CHANGES the story.
Make up your own. Kids love that. But watering down a classic? Unacceptable.
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Preach it. One thing with the Twilight series, I refused to let my daughter lend it out. I was NOT dealing with those phone calls. I thought every parent needed to make the decision of whether or not her child could read it for herself. 🙂
(You know until you mentioned it, I still didn’t remember about the abortion part of Dirty Dancing. Huh.)
Ellen
When I was working as a gifted specialist in an elementary school this was one of the biggest issues that would come up with parents. “My 6 year old child can read on a ninth grade level.” My response was always, “Yes, but just because they can do something doesn’t necessarily mean that they should.” If a book has inappropriate or adult themes, just keep it away from a kindergartener for now. We have to let their emotional intellect catch up to their academic one. I LOVE the way that you handled the Eclipse book with your daughter!
Comprehension is such a different beast from reading level. Thanks for pointing that out. I’m not sure how much a 5-year-old could even appreciate all of the nuances of Harry Potter.
Ellen
Yes! Made me think of that episode of Friends when Phoebe finds out the real ending to Old Yeller!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osRX86BYsVg
I must admit…I have been known to add the line “and they dated for a while until they realized they” into books based on Disney stories (which I love) right before “they fell in love and got married and lived happily ever after.” . But now that I have thought about it a bit, perhaps I will just add my commentary AFTER “The End”. Thanks for the reminder to keep it real!
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You know what was weird about Phoebe being sheltered from the ending to Old Yeller? She had the roughest childhood and early adulthood of any of those characters. I guess shielding can happen to anyone.
And seriously, Jen. I think that is a great idea for you to claim the commentary as your own. Parents are the biggest influencers on their children.
Ellen
Oh yeah! Oh freakin yeah! You know it!!
Gosh, what will she do when they get to the part where Ron gets gay married and Hermoine gets an abortion?!?!
I kid, I kid. I’m against “pinkwashing” which isn’t the right word for what she’s doing at all.
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Outstanding post. I sent the “Moms Who Drink and Swear” post to my hubby because he writes middle-grade fiction. He couldn’t get past all the swearing (that doesn’t bother me though). I will send him yours instead.
In my family, we have a rule that the kids have to listen to/read each HP book before they can see the movie. That rule also applies to my 10-year-old with The Hunger Games series. My 7-year-old just saw “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” and now is obsessed with Harry Potter again. He wants to start on Book 4 now, but that will take us awhile to read to him.
My parents didn’t censor what I read when I was younger. I was the only girl in junior high who had a copy of Judy Blume’s “Forever”! And I remember when I was in grade school, and the librarian WOULD NOT LET ME check out “Chitty Bang Bang,” even though I had already read it. I’ll never forget that.
I think it’s important to let kids read what they are ready for, with limits of course. We don’t allow any extreme violence in our house…not that anyone’s asked for that, with the exceptions of some requests for video games.
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I think this woman is a looney bird. First of all, everyone knows pink washing already means something else. Next, she is a writer herself. That’s what gets me. Would she be okay with someone changing her words? I adore the HP series, and my sons are finally old enough that we can read them together. We are on the second book, but like someone said above I will shelve it when the series gets to be too much for my boys. Thanks for your perspective.
I wonder what Messina is going to do when her son has to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or Tom Sawyer in school. My son is in the sixth grade and was assigned those books to read. We had discussions about how life was at the time these books were written, the language that was acceptable then but not now, and whether kids would be able to do today what was done in the books.
I couldn’t agree more – you can’t have it both ways. I like the idea of the paperclips. I have an eight year old who wants to read The Hunger Games and The Diary of Anne Frank and that may be the ticket to engaging in conversations to help her understand concepts that may be a stretch for her.
Wonder what she’s going to do when Emmett reads the book for himself?
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There’s the reality of adult themes surrounding children in everyday life. They are smart and perceptive. Sure, we can try to keep them precious, innocent snowflakes forever or, we can really see them, recognize their ability to process and make a leap of faith. My 7 year old is currently reading Chamber of Secrets. She’s in love. I trust her brain and our ability to communicate. Books should challenge our “known” perspectives. It’s the great gift of story-telling. I can’t imagine dumbing it down for the sake of keeping things vanilla. Ick. I’m with you.
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I love this so much that I want to have supernatural sex with you. Wait, let me pinkwash that. I want to hug you a lot in very super-human ways that do not result in orgasms. Nope, I did that wrong.
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And now I’ve read her article. Meh. It didn’t bother me so much. I think what ultimately happened is that she tried pinkwashing (which, I do deplore, either skip the book or face it), but I think she realized she was in too deep for pinkwashing and gave up. Do I think it’s a little too saccharine, her article, for my taste? Yep. Especially since I my now 8yo has already read the first three books both with and without me (and I’m not stopping her from reading the rest, she’s just in a Wimpy Kid phase).
In fact, she’s a pretty savvy self-limiter. That is that she won’t read books that scare her too much. Isn’t that a valuable thing to learn one’s own limits? She started the Percy Jackson series and put it down because it frightened her. And I can’t think of a better way to inoculate kids than to let them dabble in the bigger themes of life and see how they feel about it. Like you, her dabbling lead to some great discussions between us.
So, I’m with you all the way that pinkwashing is bogus. The world belongs to our kids as much as it belongs to us. It’s not our job to change that world, though I respect every parent’s right to shield a child who isn’t ready. In the meantime, let’s all remember that Voldemort is a psycho killer, m’kay? Not a conflicted man who sometimes makes bad decisions.
Oh, and becoming a seeker because of bad behavior is a reward? Let’s slow your roll, Lynn. Don’t reward your kid for shit behavior and I think the object lesson will outweigh the literary one.
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That was a genius handling of “Eclipse”. As a mom, grandma of 18, 16 and 13 year olds who we have raised and also a retired psych nurse who loved working with kids I can tell you that lying to kids is never a good idea. They have bullshit meters that are absolutely accurate. If you are lying to them and they act like they believe you, trust me, you are the only one being fooled.
I was browsing through the YA section of our library not too long ago when I noticed a woman looking very upset & stacking up books. I made the mistake of conversing with her. Her 10-year-old daughter had informed her of certain books being in her classroom that they didn’t feel were age-appropriate. One book, the girl had only gotten a couple of pages in before bringing it to her mom. After complaining, the teacher told her she would remove the innapropriate books from the room (they had been donated). The daughter reported to her mom that the books had not been removed. Instead, they (teacher & librarian) no longer allowed this girl to check out those books. The mom was furious & was going to check out as many of those books as she could find. She was concerned about the other children whose parents may not even be aware what kind of “smut” their children were reading. I felt she was lucky her daughter even said anything. I can remember getting my hands on some old romances someone was throwing out & reading all the dirty parts while giggling over it with a friend. My mom didn’t censor me much, but I knew those books wouldn’t fly.
I love this piece! Thanks! I totally agree with everything you say here, I think that some parents have a really hard time accepting the consequences they so want their own kids to accept. You are right, she could have realized that the book was not right for her son and said that she made a mistake and pick something else. But to change it to suit her child’s needs is just wrong, wrong, wrong!
I wonder what her kid will think when he actually reads it for himself, or starts talking about it with a friend in a few years and finds out his mother changed it. What does that teach him. If she takes him to a museum what is she going to do if she doesn’t like a painting or sculpture, carry a “pink” scarf! Thanks for such a great piece.
And, by the way, loved, really loved how you handled the Twilight issue. Perfect!!!
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Wow – I love this Ellen and Erin. I love how you used Eclipse as a teachable moment rather than just putting your daughter in a bubble like so many parents do today. I had not heard the term “Pinkwashing” used like this before, but I’m not surprised it’s going on. I’m truly worried about our kids’ generation. So many of these kids are so terribly sheltered and useless. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to walk to the market, uphill (both ways), in the snow.
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