Sanitising literature

[Darren]

Marty I couldn't agree with you more.

Enid Blyton would be spinning in her grave over what has been done to her stories.

Baa Baa Rainbow sheep have you any wool? Man what are they on? I have seen white sheep, black sheep, black and white sheep but I reckon the only people that have ever seen Rainbow sheep were experimenting with LSD. Black is simply a colour. I can't understand why talking about shearing a black sheep can in any way be considered racist except by "idiots."

I live on a small farm and each year we had a steer killed on the property and then the butcher would hang it in a refrigerated van and return a week later to cut it up. Now my second oldest daughter watched the process of killing and gutting one year. Admittedly it is not the most pleasant process but for the animal they walked into the yards straight from the paddock and it was over in a split second. No getting carted away and being banged about, hot in the truck etc etc. I think it is the best way if an animal is going to be eaten, it is the kindest you can be given the circumstances. Anyway after watching this she vowed to become a vegetarian. I explained to her that just because you don't see an animal die and get cut up doesn't mean it doesn't happen. The meat in a supermarket comes from the same process but it is often not such a pleasant journey for the animal to get there. You need to understand that for us to eat meat, an animal dies somewhere and doing it the way we do here is the kindest we can be to our animals.

The vegetarian status lasted to the first steaks were cooked.

Let's face it; people have to understand the consequences of their actions. If you don't tell a city kid milk comes from a cow then what do they think? Eating a roast has cost the life of an animal somewhere. Throwing rubbish into the ocean can kill wild life. A lion eats a gazelle to survive. There is cause and effect for everything and unless we explain these to the next generation what are we going to end up with.

Darren

[Heather]

Marty it's funny you should mention Red Riding Hood. (Actually I have a funny joke about RRH). Anyway, I was sitting in a doctor's waiting room a few weeks ago and a mum was reading RRH to her young boy of about 3 years and he got really scared when she got to the bit about Grandma being eaten by the wolf and she had to explain that Grandma wasn't chewed up but was later spat out quite in tact. We forget that fairy tales can be quite scary.

Heather

[Maureen K Clifford]

Spot on Darren and well said especially about the rainbow sheep. As you know my Midnight was black and my great niece aged 6 was here the other day and noticed her photo on the wall and asked about it. I told her that she was once my pet and she was black - just like her Mums old dog was black...but she wasn't having it. I gave her some of Midnights wool that I had spun and told her to take it to school and show the teachers and the kids that this was real wool from a real sheep and the sheep was really black. In actual fact the wool spun a dark chocolate brown and is beautiful soft 18 micron wool but that doesn't count as 'fine wool' these days.

I would love to be a fly on the wall on Monday - nothing like setting the cat amongst the pigeons

[Heather]

We all survived. It was interesting to see the little fellow's reaction though.

Heather

[Neville Briggs]

If it wasnt so serious it would be too funny

Exactly Marty. It is serious, not at all funny. Children are being taught to confuse compassion with sentimentality, and to confuse tolerance with weak-willed acquiescence.

[r.magnay]

...yeah that's right....what he said

[Kym]

... yet children can see violent blood and guts and gore scenes on tv ... why is that allowed?

[Heather]

Not to mention the news!

[Bob Pacey]

I really think it would depend on how the story was explained to the child. Some stories were meant to convey fear and in doing so deliver a message to kids in a language they could understand. Such figures as a Boggie Man ect were used in this vein where now we see an emphasis on stranger danger.

Kids need to know that there are consequences for bad behavour or incorrect decisions.


Other stories it would seem were just meant to be fun. !!!!

Bob

[Bob Pacey]

Sorry you girls snuck in while I was typing.

I can guarantee that my kids never watched anything that I did not approve of or thought suitable.


Bob