Raising Intellectual and Realistic Children

Copyright 2000

All Rights Reserved

I’m not sure what it is about books. But all my life, when I wanted desperately to know something, I went to the library and was in awe of all those authors speaking to me, just waiting to share their message with me. 

My parents weren’t really readers, and I was literally the red-haired stepchild, if you will, always wanting to go to the library when they all wanted to go to the movies. I guess the latest "parenting difference of opinion" should be of no shock to me then once again between my mother and I as of late.

I run a very small online used bookstore but in all honesty, I’m really a home for unwanted books. Remember the Santa movie and the "Home for Misfit Toys?" Well that’s kind of me except I’m the home for misfit books. Anything from old 1800’s books on Baroque Music to new age ideas on UFO’s I’ve got it and I’ll treasure it. So it came as no surprise to me that the basic ritual of seeing what was "good pickings" came around a few weeks ago when I found a crate of books dropped off on my front door step. My kids get first dibs on whatever arrives before the store does.

My daughter found a real prize in "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare".  She’s age 6 but roughly reading at between age 9 or 10. She got the basic idea of plot while reading "Romeo and Juliet" and to further her understanding I checked out a children’s version of the same story from the library. 

At the end of a week, she and her brother were acting the story out with it’s sword fights, dramatic deaths and lest we not forget the chance to climb up the trellis all in the name of literary comprehension, Mom!!! (All right now get down before you break your neck!)

Not to put a feather in my cap, but I as a homeschool mom I was proud of her. I read the play in the 8th grade and the mere thought of it had scared me to death. All that flowery language! As I listened to the giggling and the "Capulet" and "Montague" jabs and teasing, I wondered what made my kids so fearless and why I had had such trepidation. It was obvious really. I had been told all my life as a kid that Shakespeare was "hard", "difficult", "cultured". On the other hand, my own children were never given such labels on books of any kind. If they were interested, we tackled it. Then I learned it was even more than a mere labeling issue.

My mother and I were having a chat on the phone a few days later. She wanted to know what Libby wanted for her birthday that was coming up. I mentioned my daughter’s love of her newly accomplished discovery in Romeo and Juliet. Too bad we couldn’t find something based on that, I said aloud. Funny, when the words came out of my mouth and the sinking feeling surrounded me how I wished I could have sucked them back

For the next 20 minutes my mother argued with me over why the issues of all the Shakespeare plays were too old for my 6 year old. 

"What issues," I wondered? 

"You know," came mom.  "Suicide, murder, conspiracy.  The death of parents. Shakespeare is no place for a child!" she insisted.

This is where the light bulb came on in my head. It had more than just homeschooling to do with it, too. I think as a Pagan parent, I treat my kids as real people. I never sugar coat things. I have learned the hard way not to set limits with such phrases as "that’s too hard." I made that mistake once.  I’ll not do it again.  As a good friend once put it, "We treat our kids as if they had working brains." 

Unlike most people, I respected that my child knew what she was ready to read, and I helped guide her. And let’s examine these issues that are so horrid we need to keep them from our kids. 

Suicide?  Didn’t we see this in the news last week about two children/preteens who killed themselves?  Oh yes, now I remember, it was on TV at your house. But that was the news!

Murder?  Can’t swing a dead cat in any form of media without a child running across murder themes, plots and the notorious "He’s dead, Jim" phrases.

Conspiracy and death of parents?  Can you say almost every classic book and Disney film?  Let’s see --  kids whose parents were dead in the plot: "Little Orphan Annie", "Tarzan", "Madeline", "Oliver Twist", "Harry Potter", "Heidi", the kids from "Witch Mountain", "Superman", "James Bond", "Batman", Taran from "The Black Cauldron",  Luke Skywalker (Oh, like Darth Vader was ever around or a good father figure), "King Arthur", "Anne of Green Gables", Daine of "Wild Magick", Tabias of the "Animorphs", Jim Hawkins of "Treasure Island", "Pollyanna", "Tom Sawyer", and, lest we forget, Bambi and all the Lost Boys in Never Land!  I mean, come on!

Pagans respect tale weaving in order to teach the future generations a lesson to be learned. Whether it be from an Elder of the family or an author from 500 years ago. May the world discover what we Pagan parents never forget that among the plastic coated world in which we live, we thrive on the life that lives underneath all the layers of coating, disguises and muses. 

While not all of our children enjoy Shakespeare is not the issue. It’s the lessons we have learned from those who have gone before us and could weave a good tale ‘round a hearth fire. It is the respect we have for the child spirit that instinctually knows when it is ready to move in another direction and when it plans to remain on one particular focus for a while longer. Raising independent thinkers and compassionate souls is our real proof in the pudding.