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.
