I think my parents were right (on movie violence)

A couple of days ago, I observed an online conversation between some good friends of mine. A friend stated that she was at Zero Dark Thirty with her ~8 year old son. Another friend made the comment that she allowed her kids to see violent movies but not ones with sex. The thought then crossed my mind that this is exactly what should be part of the national conversation that needs to be had about the role that media plays in our American culture of violence.

When I was a child I wasn’t allowed to watch very violent movies. To this day, I very rarely do. However, I was allowed to watch movies that had nudity and some adult/sexual content. I can even remember my mother sending me upstairs once when she felt like the movie was too “adult” for me.

 I think my parents had it right and my friends have it wrong. I am not saying that my friends are bad parents, on the contrary they are great parents, they love their children and they really want what’s best for them. I suspect that there are a lot of parents that agree with them. I just think that when we as a society think its ok to expose our children to movies that glorify violence (like Saw, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc) or a movie with (at least in my mind) the very adult content of torture over a movie that has a tasteful sex scene or some adult content than we have a problem.

For the record, I am not advocating that we allow our kids to watch porn (although a lot of them already are) and there are a lot of movies that are rated R for sexual content that are not appropriate for kids. However, maybe, just maybe parents need to think about what seeing all that senseless violence can do to a child. A movie is rated R for a reason and while we can’t control what movies parents show to their children at home, maybe its time to not allow small children in R movies or maybe its time for more movies to get an R rating for violence instead of a PG-13.

I am not saying that watching violent movies or playing violent video games is the sole cause of what makes a mass murderer but isn’t Sandy Hook enough of a reason to take a closer look? Every kid is different and it really is up to the parent to determine if the child is ready to see any form of adult content. However, its time we take a hard look at what our children are watching or playing and the effect that senseless violence has on them. Its time we talk about the responsibility of parents to ensure that children who are not capable of understanding the difference between fantasy and reality don’t live in a fantasy land that is filled with blood and guts. This isn’t something that we as a society should legislate but I really hope that the next time your child wants to see a violent movie you might just stop and consider what all these violent images are doing to your child’s soul. I find it ironic that European countries where sexual content is everywhere and violence is not do not as a general rule, have the culture of violence that the U.S. does. Maybe we could learn something from them.