Oct 24, 2014

Should I Let My Child Read Twilight?

Hello all! So Twilight is a series of books that is known to be controversial for a number of reasons. Here's the down low of what you worried parents all need to know.

Is it inappropriate? Is there sex/drugs/profanity etc.?

Not really. There's kissing, but nothing graphic. There are minor swear words like "damn" and "crap." There might be some very minor references to drugs somewhere in the books. Overall, I would suspect anything ever remotely bad would go right over most people's heads. If you're child can understand the vocabulary and not be bored by the story, I don't see any real reason why they can't be allowed to read it. Romeo and Juliet has more inappropriate themes than Twilight. So are most young adult books

But I hear it's really bad. I don't want my child reading some crappy schlock!

Well have you read it yourself? If not, you can't judge it. I found that the plots and characters were a bit belabored, but the writing itself wasn't that bad. Honestly, I thought Lord of The Flies was a bad book, but that doesn't mean I have any right to tell people not to read it.

But the main character, Bella, is portrayed as weak and makes poor choices. I don't want my kid to reflect on her!

Bella is exactly that, a character. Not all females are strong and smart and noble. Even main characters. Not all main characters are meant to be looked up to. You know who else is a main character? Harry Potter. Overall he's good and all that jazz, but during some of the books he's extremely moody, rude, and makes very poor choices. We all do. Bella doesn't represent all females or people. It's not a good enough reason to keep your child from reading the book.

Do we really need to expose our children to so much romance? Aren't they too young for romance?

There's romance everywhere. Practically all Disney movies are centered on romance. Even little kids love romance and want to have boyfriends and girlfriends.

Overall, you may not remember what it was like to be young. I can tell you this: things are not nearly as complicated as we make them out to be. And children are highly intelligent and they aren't naive. There are five year olds that have seen R rated movies and they ended up alright. It won't ruin your child's life if they read Twilight.