Sanitized Childhood

I read a Curious George book to my children a few weeks ago. It was a library copy — one of the very old ones, wrapped in protective plastic with decades-old, handwritten due dates inside the front cover.

The story was typical H. A. Rey fare. The man with the yellow hat was exasperatingly clueless while George was up to no good with a family of ducks in the park. Gosh, we love that little monkey.

Suddenly, though, in the midst of the mischief, I noticed something: People were smoking.

There, on the pages of a children’s book, mothers and children picnicked on checkered blankets in the park while their fathers sat casually beside them, smoking cigarettes.

I don’t know how much time you spend browsing through the pages of children’s books, but I have put in enough hours to tell you this: Smoking is unheard of. Grownups do not smoke in the presence of children or monkeys. Not ever. That would be setting a bad example.

And yet here sat these vintage daddies, puffing contentedly away on their illustrated cigarettes, while women, children, and monkeys stood idly by.

I was enchanted.

Not because I’m a fan of smoking, mind you. In fact, a good way to fall fast out of my good graces is to light up a cigarette in the presence of my kids. And I have promised each of my children a good old-fashioned throttling if ever one of them dares to start such a nasty habit.

But I was enchanted nonetheless. Because men smoking in children’s books flies in the face of the modern day epidemic I would describe as “sanitized childhood.”

We’ve given our kids’ childhoods a power washing. We filter and sanitize their worlds and experiences in a way that past generations never thought to do.

Did you know, for example, that you can buy DVD copies of the original episodes of Sesame Street, but that they come with a disclaimer?

“These early Sesame Street episodes are intended for grown-ups,” the insert says, “and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

I think it would be far more accurate to say that classic Sesame Street episodes where Oscar the Grouch is truly grouchy, where children ride bicycles without helmets, and where Cookie Monster overindulges in saturated fats, may not suit the needs of today’s parents of preschoolers.

The needs of today’s preschool child are really not very different from those of children of previous generations. When we sanitize childhood, though, we run the risk of neglecting some of these needs. Here are three basic ones I think get lost in the “sanitation”:

Continue reading this article…