Harry Potter first started becoming popular when I was in college. Not one to care for fads I didn’t pay much attention to the books, or the hoopla they caused in the Christian community. Then the librarian at my Christian college – a fine Christian woman – was talking about it one day. She thought the books were fine, and the hoopla was uninformed and misdirected. So I was curious and looked into it all. What I’ve read on both sides of it brought me to this question: are the people vilifying the Harry Potter books paying as close attention to the other books their children read? What about the music they listen to, movies they watch, computer media they use? Do they really know what is available to their children at their schools, libraries, or online?
True, that’s easy for me to say since I’ve never had children at that age and don’t know how hard it is to keep track of that or get them to talk about it. The truth of it is, we can’t monitor or dictate everything for our kids. It seems that rather than putting our thoughts and energies into attacking popular media, we should put them into teaching our children responsibility. Teach them responsible reading, viewing, listening, participating. Teach them to think for themselves, decide what matters to them, and teach them to evaluate what they do in light of their beliefs. Admittedly still difficult and involving hard work, but possible.
Novel concept, right?
I have yet to read those books, but will. I never want to read the popular items when the fury is on. I let you see some movies others questioned, and I know I read books as a teen that some church members would not have approved of. I believe that made me develop my own opinions and faith. Your day is coming with the girls. You will do fine.
ReplyDeleteIt's really not those books so much I intended this to be about. Just all of it in general. There's books based on content that were in the Middle School and High School libraries that are much worse than H.P. And I've never heard a peep about those. Not even the Twilight books.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right that we develop our own opinions and faith by what we take in. But still should exercise caution. I think I could have talked to you about any of it and that is what I'd like to emphasize: being active in our family's lives and knowing what is going on; having open communication.
(And thanks for the encouragement too. We've already had some interesting conversations about things picked up at school ;)