Navigating adult content

Whenever possible I try to take my kids to the artsy events that I attend for my work or for my entertainment. This is sometimes uncomfortable for people, because they assume the presence of children implies the need to avoid profanity or sexuality or whatever other subjects they think are too adult.

What I find interesting about this is that it forgets the vast amount of violence, sexuality, and profanity that children see (however much their parents try to prevent it) in the television, music, movies, advertizing, and social media that they take in every day.  It also forgets that this kind of pop culture most often exposes children to adult themes without providing them with any realistic and thoughtful means to cope with it, whereas the purpose of art, when it is functioning properly, is precisely to approach these subjects in a way that encourages critical reflection, which is a tool that children desperately need in order to negotiate their world.

I’m not suggesting that parents should expose their children to anything and everything.  In fact, I would recommend exposing them to much less culture of the gratuitous pop variety.  What I am suggesting is that children need to be exposed to art, even when this art includes adult elements, because they need to see people responding to the difficult questions of life with thoughtfulness and candour.  I am also suggesting that children need to have this experience with their parents, as a way to open dialogue, so that they are not forced to understand their world alone or with a peer group informed mostly by a pop culture interested only in selling to them.

So take your child to a play or a concert, and if there are a few objectionable bits, well, consider them a place to begin the conversation.