Sometimes Thank yous are needed

[pinksonia]

Does anyone else use Goodreads?  I like it as a way to keep track of the books I read each year -- much better than my old word document method.  Anyway, I've been a member of the Adults reading Young Adult Fiction group (called Wildthings) for about a year now.  I think I'm in the minority in that group due to the fact that I am neither a teacher nor a mother, but reading through the messages has prompted me to thank my mother numerous times over the last year for the way she raised me. 

Many of the people (mostly women) who post in the group do so because they read every book their child reads in order to  make sure the themes are appropriate.  Now, I'm not a mother, so I can only come at this situation from the view point of the child, but I would have stopped reading or I would have become the biggest sneak imaginable -- hiding every book I found regardless of how "appropriate" it might have been.  Then again,  I am and have always been a very private person. 

I come from a huge family of readers.  We trade books all the time.  No family get together is complete without an exchange of books accompanied by an "I think you'll like this,"  if fact every time I visit my parents I am greeted by a new stack of books in my childhood room, things my parents have read since the last time I was home and think I might like.  My grandmother does the same thing but with articles which can be sent through the mail.  Still, all through my childhood I can only remember reading two things around the same time as my mother: Christy when the television series came out and Anne of Green Gables and its sequels right before we went to Prince Edward Island on vacation.  The first book even involves an instance of Statutory rape, but there was never a sense that I couldn't read it or that we needed to have a "very special" discussion about it.  I was allowed to read whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and trusted to get things or not get them. 

So, once again -- thank you Mom (and Dad) for your hands off approach to my reading material growing up.  Thank you for taking me to the library often, and for letting me check out anything that looked interesting. 

Comments

[wattle-neurotic.livejournal.com]

I have goodreads, I can't remember my login over there though *lol* I tend to update once every few months, I've been slack this year!

I too had parents that would let me read whatever I wanted. I wouldn't have liked Mum or Dad to read books first and then tell me if it was okay to read :/ I couldn't even imagine that! My taste differs so much from my parents (Mum has her romance novels, Dad has his crime and non-fiction, I have my fantasy and horror) so I don't imagine it would have worked anyway! My folks did nothing but let me read, and I am grateful for it because I love nothing more than a good book!

[pinksonia.livejournal.com]

I'm lucky in that I do share a certain amount of taste with both my parents. My mom tends toward the atmospheric modern novel (the kind of thing that might be picked for Oprah's book club though I don't think my mother's ever watched an episode of Oprah in her life) and my father toward more quirky things.