Children Already Know that Dragons Exist

Remember when you were a kid and an adult would say something like “children are innocent and pure” and you’d think “umm, yeah lady, you just keep thinking that.” Or do you remember when your teacher asked in outrage “Where did you even learn that word?” and you’d think “Gee, I dunno, maybe from every other kid at school.” When you overheard adults talking about violence or tragedy you weren’t shocked because nothing could be worse than the bloody fangs and ripping claws of the creatures in your closet.

Then you grew a little older and real life hard stuff happened all around you. Even if you lived in middle class suburbia you knew about that girl that disappeared from school because of what her weird uncle did to her, or that boy whose dad was shot, or that scrawny kid  with some disease you couldn’t pronounce died. Mostly this happened to strangers, sometimes it happened to friends, sometimes it happened to you.

And you couldn’t tell adults about it. These were the same people who didn’t believe you when you told them about the monsters under the bed. How could you possibly expect them to understand what it means to be wary of the seventh grade?

My point is that children have a secret world and it is easy to forget how scary it is. They’re often jaded about the things that we consider “too adult” for them. Probably because their lives are more adult than they let on.  When kids do bring problems to their parents the reaction is often something like: “Seriously, that kid threatened to push you off the bridge and you didn’t tell someone? What is wrong with you?” Explaining that the other kid was only 50% serious doesn’t really reassure grown ups, either that or they’re too reassured and they decide that you’re just being too sensitive. It’s hard to convey these subtleties to adults, you remember how it was.

When kids can’t go to adults they can always go to stories. Stories don’t judge you, or try to fix you, and the good ones don’t shove a “life lesson” down your throat. They’re simply road maps. Some are realistic maps that tell you that this is what happens when your friend gets pregnant and that is what happens when your mother dies. Other maps are hazier with information about undead horrors and alien invaders--but those maps are arguably even more useful since the conflicts can symbolize whatever you’re going through at the time: your first crush, the pressure to excel, weird stuff your body is doing, or just loneliness.

But sometimes adults want to protect children from stories, precisely because the road maps are too detailed. These adults say “the world is scary enough,” they fret about the nightmares their children will have, the sexual exploration this might inspire, or the violence they might reenact.

They’re not wrong.

If you let your kids read useful books then they’ll have nightmares. They will learn more about their bodies at a younger age than you’d like. They may want to act out the violent things they read. Sometimes the results will be extreme and terrible like in the recent Slender Man Stabbings. It’s much more likely that someone will just get a broken arm or you’ll have to have an uncomfortable conversation about anatomy.

And still I say let them read scary, sexual, sad, violent books. Knowledge is dangerous but the cost of ignorance is higher. Protecting them from difficult stories is like sending them on a road trip through adolescence without a map. Parental guidance, good friends, a moral code--they’re the brakes, the fuel, and the steering wheel, but none of them replace a map.

Obviously we don’t give Steven King novels to third graders but kids are generally good at pacing themselves. I’ve re-read books that I read as a child and thought Wow, how did I miss that bloody dismemberment? I don’t remember that at all. When I was sixteen I picked up a romance novel someone’s mom left in the bathroom. I got two pages in, glanced over the bit about oral sex, and put it down. Kids seek out information that’s relevant to their lives, when something doesn't fit they often just skip it or move on to a new book.

Step in when you have to and tell your kids to wait a few years. That’s good parenting. But please, don’t take the books out of the library. Don’t hide the maps because you don’t like the terrain. Think of everything we'd miss out on.

“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”

G.K. Chesterton