On violence and nurturing.
I'm not a very outspoken person. I don't spend a lot of time talking about politics or major issues because, to be honest, while I can certainly take a stand one way or another, I can only do so based on a very loose idea of what I'm getting myself into. I'm not interested in a majority of things concerning the government, and there is very little that I really care enough about in order to actually write a long, thought out post on it.
The exception rolls in when I see or hear something that truly perplexes me. It's an attempt at discussion, an attempt to learn, so I am putting this out there in the hopes that someone will be able to tell me what the hell these people are talking about.
CNN this morning had a brief story on the state of Massachusetts attempting to make the purchasing of violent video games by minors illegal. In part, I can understand this. I know that there are parents that do not want their children exposed to violence or danger or blood or pain. It's a parental standard, or so it seems, to "protect" children from such things. What confuses me is the way certain things are worded, and then it brings me to wonder exactly what is so damaging about them.
A quote from the newsbit : "I believe that violent video games can be as damaging to minors as pornography." Whoa. Back up a minute, please. First, exactly what is damaging about pornography? Is it a terrible thing for kids to know about sex and their "naughty bits" before they've come into them? I've never understood the age limit with regards to pornographic viewing. I can certainly understand why child pornography is illegal, but the general idea of an age limit for anything has never made sense to me. Eventually, people get exposed to this sort of thing. Regardless of whether or not the parent wants it to happen, it does. I remember riding home from school on the bus in the sixth grade- the SIXTH GRADE, you mind- I had another kid ask me if I wanted to have sex. I had no idea what he was talking about, and he drew a picture- a pair of stick figures, one male, one female, on top of each other. I still didn't understand what he meant, so I said no. More because I didn't know when I would see him off of the bus than because I didn't want to know what he was talking about. Thinking back on the years later, I realized what he had meant.
I wonder, would exposure to pornography, or at least acceptance of it as a form of media without these limitations, even benefit children? There are sexual predators out there that can and will attack children, molest them, and rape them. There is a law against such actions to protect children from this happening. But how do they know what is happening to them if it does? Childhood rape is not something to be taken lightly, but I almost see pornography as a protective measure. If a child is more informed, would he or she not be more inclined to speak about it? For people, at least in America, nudity is awkward and wrong and exposure in any sense is just plain bad. We cover ourselves to expose ourselves, and children and parents alike are left asking and answering such questions as "how are babies made" and, "what is happening to my body?" We have books, now. We have websites, we have pages, but this is all so impersonal and seems to be our way of dodging the issue. Avoidance of something makes it seem shameful and embarrassing, and for the most part, that is just not fair. To make a thirteen year old child feel ashamed of his or herself because of what is happening naturally? Even if it is unintentional, that is a terrible way of raising a child. I don't mean to put down my parents or anything, but there really were better ways of trying to raise us.
A convenient segue would be to discuss how, at around fifteen, I began drawing fanart. It wasn't anything special- just copying pictures that I found in my brothers' video game manuals. Crash Bandicoot, Final Fantasy, and all those. My brother could have been playing Quake and getting his little ass gunned down and spattering blood everywhere, and my mother would not have minded. However, when I drew a - very good, I thought - picture of Squall's gunblade from FFVIII and proudly began showing it off, my mother threw a fit, even going so far as to take it from me and throw it in the garbage. Rather than nurture a blossoming talent, she took from me a simple drawing, something I was proud of- yet continued to let my brother play the games that actually made use of this weapon.
At the time, I could say that my mother was overreacting. I knew she didn't like guns, but in my defense, it looked more like a sword. Parents knew less about games back then. It was the golden age of gaming. Sonic and Mario were competing for the top spot in most popular game- whereas today they're in the SAME game, beating the shit out of each other. And this is just kind of accepted, you know? There are games like God of War that are endlessly violent and bloody to a fault, but there is a story there, and that needs to be read into more. However, because of the gore, because of the "adult" nature of the story, you have kids being forced into playing games like Super Smash Brothers Brawl, which have violence as the sole purpose of the game. Seriously, what do you do? You choose a character, your friends choose characters, and you pound the crap out of each other. The whole point is to kill each other to win. There is no story, no real reason aside from "it's fun." And yet, it's more "damaging" for the violence to have reason, for there to be a story, and for kids to know WHY they're killing, WHY they're harming, WHY they are trying to "defeat the enemy" than it is to senselessly pound away at one another.
It's almost ridiculous on an "at home" level. And then it gets brought up to politics, and I can see that in the coming years, once homosexual rights are no longer the big issue, it's going to be gaming. And really, it's ridiculous. We have people here, in this country that consider it an honor to go to war, to fight and to kill other people in REAL LIFE, and yet the act of playing a game, visually enacting a story that may or not have basis in history (but is a story all the same) is, to the wives and mothers of those same soldiers and veterans, is "damaging" to their children.
There are things that are far more important than concerning yourselves with the "damage" your children will undergo through exposure. Think about encouraging rather than discouraging, enabling rather than demeaning, and teaching rather than censoring. Bill of Rights, people. Work with it. Don't overthrow it.
The exception rolls in when I see or hear something that truly perplexes me. It's an attempt at discussion, an attempt to learn, so I am putting this out there in the hopes that someone will be able to tell me what the hell these people are talking about.
CNN this morning had a brief story on the state of Massachusetts attempting to make the purchasing of violent video games by minors illegal. In part, I can understand this. I know that there are parents that do not want their children exposed to violence or danger or blood or pain. It's a parental standard, or so it seems, to "protect" children from such things. What confuses me is the way certain things are worded, and then it brings me to wonder exactly what is so damaging about them.
A quote from the newsbit : "I believe that violent video games can be as damaging to minors as pornography." Whoa. Back up a minute, please. First, exactly what is damaging about pornography? Is it a terrible thing for kids to know about sex and their "naughty bits" before they've come into them? I've never understood the age limit with regards to pornographic viewing. I can certainly understand why child pornography is illegal, but the general idea of an age limit for anything has never made sense to me. Eventually, people get exposed to this sort of thing. Regardless of whether or not the parent wants it to happen, it does. I remember riding home from school on the bus in the sixth grade- the SIXTH GRADE, you mind- I had another kid ask me if I wanted to have sex. I had no idea what he was talking about, and he drew a picture- a pair of stick figures, one male, one female, on top of each other. I still didn't understand what he meant, so I said no. More because I didn't know when I would see him off of the bus than because I didn't want to know what he was talking about. Thinking back on the years later, I realized what he had meant.
I wonder, would exposure to pornography, or at least acceptance of it as a form of media without these limitations, even benefit children? There are sexual predators out there that can and will attack children, molest them, and rape them. There is a law against such actions to protect children from this happening. But how do they know what is happening to them if it does? Childhood rape is not something to be taken lightly, but I almost see pornography as a protective measure. If a child is more informed, would he or she not be more inclined to speak about it? For people, at least in America, nudity is awkward and wrong and exposure in any sense is just plain bad. We cover ourselves to expose ourselves, and children and parents alike are left asking and answering such questions as "how are babies made" and, "what is happening to my body?" We have books, now. We have websites, we have pages, but this is all so impersonal and seems to be our way of dodging the issue. Avoidance of something makes it seem shameful and embarrassing, and for the most part, that is just not fair. To make a thirteen year old child feel ashamed of his or herself because of what is happening naturally? Even if it is unintentional, that is a terrible way of raising a child. I don't mean to put down my parents or anything, but there really were better ways of trying to raise us.
A convenient segue would be to discuss how, at around fifteen, I began drawing fanart. It wasn't anything special- just copying pictures that I found in my brothers' video game manuals. Crash Bandicoot, Final Fantasy, and all those. My brother could have been playing Quake and getting his little ass gunned down and spattering blood everywhere, and my mother would not have minded. However, when I drew a - very good, I thought - picture of Squall's gunblade from FFVIII and proudly began showing it off, my mother threw a fit, even going so far as to take it from me and throw it in the garbage. Rather than nurture a blossoming talent, she took from me a simple drawing, something I was proud of- yet continued to let my brother play the games that actually made use of this weapon.
At the time, I could say that my mother was overreacting. I knew she didn't like guns, but in my defense, it looked more like a sword. Parents knew less about games back then. It was the golden age of gaming. Sonic and Mario were competing for the top spot in most popular game- whereas today they're in the SAME game, beating the shit out of each other. And this is just kind of accepted, you know? There are games like God of War that are endlessly violent and bloody to a fault, but there is a story there, and that needs to be read into more. However, because of the gore, because of the "adult" nature of the story, you have kids being forced into playing games like Super Smash Brothers Brawl, which have violence as the sole purpose of the game. Seriously, what do you do? You choose a character, your friends choose characters, and you pound the crap out of each other. The whole point is to kill each other to win. There is no story, no real reason aside from "it's fun." And yet, it's more "damaging" for the violence to have reason, for there to be a story, and for kids to know WHY they're killing, WHY they're harming, WHY they are trying to "defeat the enemy" than it is to senselessly pound away at one another.
It's almost ridiculous on an "at home" level. And then it gets brought up to politics, and I can see that in the coming years, once homosexual rights are no longer the big issue, it's going to be gaming. And really, it's ridiculous. We have people here, in this country that consider it an honor to go to war, to fight and to kill other people in REAL LIFE, and yet the act of playing a game, visually enacting a story that may or not have basis in history (but is a story all the same) is, to the wives and mothers of those same soldiers and veterans, is "damaging" to their children.
There are things that are far more important than concerning yourselves with the "damage" your children will undergo through exposure. Think about encouraging rather than discouraging, enabling rather than demeaning, and teaching rather than censoring. Bill of Rights, people. Work with it. Don't overthrow it.