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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to not let my 10 year old DD read Twilight?

134 replies

inatrance · 23/08/2011 22:09

My 10 year old DD is a very keen reader and has read all Harry Potter, some Phillip Pullman etc and is now desperate to read Twilight.

My take on this has been a firm 'no' but earlier today in the library DD had her friend with her (who is 11) and kept on and on about it and that her friend had read it and I caved and let her take them out.

I still wasn't happy about it, my reasons being that I don't feel that books with a 'romantic' theme are suitable for a 10 year old and also that I feel that Twilight gives some seriously dodgy messages for a young girl about what 'love' is and isn't. I also think Edward is a controlling arse and that Stephanie Mayer ought to be shot for teaching a generation of teenage girls that love=control and that life without a boyfriend just isn't worth living. That's just for starters.

My DH agrees that Twilight is unsuitable reading for a child (he used to be a children's librarian) so we have decided that it's best that she doesn't read them.

However I read all sorts of stuff at her age and I'm worried that by banning it, it will take on even greater appeal. So I'm a bit torn.

DD still isn't speaking to me and thinks I'm being desperately unreasonable. Am I?

OP posts:
rhondajean · 23/08/2011 23:13

Sorry, I can neither spell nor punctuate, must be bedtime.

MadameBoo · 23/08/2011 23:14

I wish I could write a really shit book and get rich like she did. Pah.

MadameBoo · 23/08/2011 23:16

But in Darcy's defence, he thought he was doing him a favour because she wasn't acting as though she was 'that into him' Rhonda. Tsk. Wink

squeakytoy · 23/08/2011 23:17

I grew up reading my mums Catherine Cookson books, and the odd Mills & Boon.. but I never grew up to expect real life to be full of happy endings Grin.

Let her read it. I think it is great when kids WANT to read.

rhondajean · 23/08/2011 23:20

I think Darcy is one of the least sympathetic heros in fiction Boo - and the fact that he misread Jane not tarting herself about over his friend as disinterest said it all for me !!

I am also strangely attracted to him (not just the Colin Firth incarnation) I think I share the other posters power issues/dreams of dominant men haha.

VictorGollancz · 23/08/2011 23:22

While I'm not exactly fond of Darcy, rhonda, what with him being an arrogant tosspot with snobbery issues, I maintain that Edward Cullen is a portrait of an out and out abuser packaged for young girls and made to sparkle.

I pinched my mum's Jilly Coopers when I was about 11 - the men weren't paragons of virtue but at least old J-Coops offers the sticking plaster of calling them cads and rotters. Meyer worships Edward. Bleugh!

ScatterChasse · 23/08/2011 23:24

I think perhaps you should let her read them as quickly as possible, then take them back. If you make a big thing out of it she'll be reading them actually looking for the reason you didn't want her to have them.

Hopefully if she just reads them, she won't pick up on some of the messages, although maybe have a chat to her about what she thought of them. (Especially the last one, I thought that had a few quite disturbing bits)

ComeIntoTheGardenMaud · 23/08/2011 23:24

I agree with all that VictorGollancz says. When she was 8, my dd picked up the copy of Twilight that I was reading on the beach and read the first 30 pages or so but I grabbed it before she could read any more. Although she wowuld be capable of redaing it - and would take what she could understand from it - it is just not what I would want her to read.

MissVerinder · 23/08/2011 23:25

Someone's going to have to explain the abusive subtext to me, I don't get it.

I'm not daft or stupid, honest I'm not; just sometimes miss the obvious points daydreamer

MadameBoo · 23/08/2011 23:26

Darcy pisses all over Edward, the sparkly tosspot.

Right, that's it. I'm tired and silly. Night all :o

ComeIntoTheGardenMaud · 23/08/2011 23:27

Oops. Late night spelling mistakes on a thread about books. Tsk.

rhondajean · 23/08/2011 23:28

Hes a bit controlling Miss, goes in a strop if Bella disagrees with him, emotionally manipulative. I think that the point is, hes a 17 year old boy when he gets changed, in an era when men ARE in control, and she states that vamps dont grow after their change, emotionally or physically.

Im with Scatter about being more worried about the last one, normal sex is going to be a huge disappointment/relief to a whole generation of girls after that one.

rhondajean · 23/08/2011 23:29
Jux · 23/08/2011 23:29

My dd is just 12, and has started on the Twilight series. I wouldn't have encouraged it, and still don't as I think the books are shit, and the prose is truly dreadful. She was given a massive Amazon token by my bro for her birthday and she bought the Twilight series, has read the first one and is still waiting for the other two to arrive (any day now).

If she'd been 10 I would try to keep her away from it.

Agree that Edward is vile and disgusting. Note to self: talk to dd about the sort of man he is.

MissVerinder · 23/08/2011 23:33

Thank-you Rhonda. I am now retiring to re-read the books again.

I try and block the fact that Edward is 17 from my brain though...

rhondajean · 23/08/2011 23:36

Hes 117 - we would be graverobbing not cradlesnatching Miss!!

VictorGollancz · 23/08/2011 23:41

MissVerinder, have you read the first book? If not this might not make much sense There is...

...Edward telling Bella that he could 'lose control' and hurt her, even kill her, at any time. The reason he might 'lose control' is because she has SUCH an effect on him that he just can't help himself. The fact that the effect she has on him isn't caused by her intelligence, her wit, but her SMELL (something she can't change, she's not aware of, and she only knows she has because he tells her). Bella lies to her family and friends about her relationship constantly: Edward is fine with this. Edward slags off the other boys in school because he knows how they look at her and what they're thinking (OF COURSE this is because he's telepathic but come on, I can't be the only one who's had a jealous partner use this one?). He gets really angry when one of them is mentioned. HE ADMITS TO BEING IN BELLA'S BEDROOM FOR MONTHS, WATCHING HER SLEEP, WITHOUT HER PERMISSION. He tells her she's shit at driving and drives her car. Edward lets Bella into her own house, using a key that she ACTUALLY STATES IN THE BOOK that she has NEVER used in front of Edward. So he's been stalking her? Wonderful.

And that's just the first book!

ComeIntoTheGardenMaud · 23/08/2011 23:51

Exactly, Victor. It's the subtext (well, not even subtext, the text) about control that bothers me even more than the corny writing.

PeterSpanswick · 23/08/2011 23:57

YANBU - find her something more cheerful and worthwhile to read! Grin

EricNorthmansMistressOfPotions · 24/08/2011 07:07

I understand your reservations, but at 10 she is old enough to read what she wants IMO (within reason of course). I was a voracious reader at that age and read lots of books from my mum's bookshelf that were not age appropriate (Buddha of suburbia springs to mind!) but reading isn't like watching a film, at that age you only 'see' what your mind and imagination allows you to see, so it is dependent on your frame of reference.

The romance element is also a bit unfair - sure, Twilight is a bit cockeyed on the healthy relationship front but 10 year olds read all sorts of romantically themed books with no ill effects. I read Pride and Prejudice at that age, a classic romance/happily ever after.

madamehooch · 24/08/2011 07:23

I can definitely speak from experience here.

My 11 year old DD was quite happily content with HP until she heard about Twilight from school. Cue persistent nagging on an almost daily basis about 'when was she going to be old enough to read them?' I stood my ground as long as possible and then realised that, by refusing to let her read them, I was making them even more attractive to her. I gave her Twilight which she zoomed through. I then insisted that, before she read the others, she read something else and gave her 'Adrian Mole'. However, crappy writing/dodgey context or not, Stephenie Meyer's writing is addictive and, although she begrudgingly started Adrian Mole and confessed to it being 'quite good' I could tell her heart wasn't in it.

Remembering my own reading matter at that age - the awful but compelling 'Flowers in the Attic' -, and not wanting to ruin any other 'good books' for her, I allowed her to read the rest of the Twilight series.

There was a stumbling block at the birth scene is 'Breaking Dawn' - "that's disgusting!" but, I have to say, these books renewed my daughter's interest in reading. Since finishing them, she went back to Adrian Mole (which she then loved) and has read many other authors which are not darkly romantic in any way.

I believe that a lot of the content you are concerned about will go over her head. The worst I have had to deal with is a crush on Robert Pattinson!

So, I believe YABU in this case. As an ex children's librarian, your DH should also know that this is a time when children can lose the reading bug. I know I did the right thing in the end by allowing my daughter the freedom to read what she wanted.

Andrewofgg · 24/08/2011 07:40

To get them to read anything short of outright horror or porn is good.

EdwardorEricCantDecide · 24/08/2011 07:50

If she is mature enough I'd let her read them, they are v enjoyable as an escapism.
But I would have an analytical discussion about them afterward about the anti-feminist themes and the less than realistic idealist portrays.

I don't understand how but after reading them and analysing them I still really enjoy them without thinking that I "need" a man to survive etc

wordfactory · 24/08/2011 07:55

I really didn't worry when my DD read these books. Which she did at eleven. Voraciously.

Fiction is all about the vicarious thrill you get from experiencing someone else's life. At that age I read Lucky by Jackie Collins and didn't feel the need to become a mafia boss. I read Flowers in the Attic and didn't feel the need to have sex with a close family member. A bit like MN. We don't read a post by Xenia and run off to buy islands do we?
Nor did any of these supposedly awful books prevent me from going on to enjoy Shakespeare or Larkin or Plath or Carter.

As for the 'writing' being poor, well I hear this all the time (and the same of JKR) and can only say that it does exactly what it says on the tin. You can make kids buy a book or three with a marketing machine, but you cannot make them read and love it. And kids do love Twilight, no doubt about it.
So whilst the writing may not be Chaucer, it is highly successful in what it sets out to do. And as a lesson in the craft of writing, that's not a bad one.

exoticfruits · 24/08/2011 08:03

I think it quite laughable that at 10yrs old you are going to tell them not to read something and they say 'yes mummy, of course you are right'!

It instantly makes it desirable and they will find ways.
They can also work out for themselves that they are badly written etc. There is nothing worse than reading something an an adult prattling on about how dire it is. I remember loving Enid Blyton, adults saying that they had poor vocabulary etc, didn't stop it being a good story.

Half the fun of reading is reading things that your parents hate! You grow out of it. Much better to get it over with and on to better things.