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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think these really shouldn't be in a child's book?!

25 replies

TheSecretSquirrel · 14/08/2013 20:39

I bought this today for an 8 year old boy. You can make paper aeroplanes and use the stickers at the back of the book to decorate them.

But when I got home and looked at the stickers I got a bit of a shock. Take a look - AIBU to think these really are not appropriate, given that it's marketed as a children's book?

OP posts:
BeauNatt · 14/08/2013 20:42

Yanbu - that's pretty awful on a few levels (mainly sexism).

DamnDeDoubtance · 14/08/2013 20:42

Omg! They are totally inappropriate!

Yonionekanobe · 14/08/2013 20:42

YANBU

But that first link made my iPhone go bananas to warn anyone else using one...!

Blu · 14/08/2013 20:44

YANBU!

Cutitup · 14/08/2013 20:45

Yes - very odd. Very Page 3. The images aren't unlike the ones you would see on fighter planes in a war though. I remember seeing photos of Tornado and Jaguar jets during the Gulf War and they had paintings of the Fat Slags and other characters from the comic book Viz.

Not as scary as Grimm's Fairy Tales which I grew up with.

Just odd.

I am more offended by the book "My Best Mum" which my eX-DH presented me with from my DD on mother's day which told the woeful tale of a mother who couldn't do the washing without turning everything pink, or take a holiday snap without cutting everyone's heads off. "My best mum, isn't she great ....except...oh, isn't she utterly tragic and can't do a thing." DH thought it was hilarious.

Fucking hated that book. It went on the bonfire after the divorce.

Original poster
TheSecretSquirrel · 14/08/2013 20:45

Oops, sorry about that. Try this link instead

OP posts:
Trigglesx · 14/08/2013 20:48

Bit odd. But then I read a bible story book marketed to young children (ie those that are not quite ready to read yet - 3-4yos) and it was David and Goliath. Fine - it was a birthday gift from crazy SIL to DS2. But dear god, all the beheading and killing is a bit much for this age IMO. I recall the David and Goliath story from when I was a child, and it was toned down just a bit.

Oh well. That'll teach me to just pick it up and read it to him before reading it through first on my own. Hmm

RedlipsAndSlippers · 14/08/2013 20:48

Oh dear! YANBU, having said that though both DP and I have pin up tattoos, so DD is quite used to images a bit like that. Still, I wouldn't be pleased to find them in something specifically marketed at children.

Thurlow · 14/08/2013 20:50

Hugely inappropriate - but I can see they're trying to do the pin up stickers that a lot of planes used to have on them. Not that that is something an 8yo is going to miss if they aren't there!

Faezy · 14/08/2013 20:52

haha love the devil, filf!

Original poster
TheSecretSquirrel · 14/08/2013 20:56

I appreciate that planes had similar cartoons during WW2 (although I should think some of these would have been deemed a bit racey back then), but it's a childs book.

How do I explain why there is a girl dressed as a devil and why she is sticking her bum in the air, straddling a pitch fork? Mind you, kids these days probably already know the answer and have seen worse on MTV/YouTube.

It doesn't make it right though.

OP posts:
LynetteScavo · 14/08/2013 21:00

I think they are just odd. Bizarre.

I have no idea why there is a girl dressed as a devil and why she is sticking her bum in the air, straddling a pitch fork!

AndHarry · 14/08/2013 21:01

Ooo no, YANBU.

Catsize · 14/08/2013 22:12

YANBU.

runningonwillpower · 14/08/2013 22:17

No, YANBU.

But we are living in a horribly sexualised world.

And when normal women point out that it's not right they are deemed stupid feminists.

It's not right.

ChippingInHopHopHop · 14/08/2013 22:19

Wouldn't bother me. It was the kind of thing that they had painted on planes and you are looking at it from an adults perspective... the one with the devil and a pitchfork - kids will see a dressed up animal picking something up.

ageofgrandillusion · 14/08/2013 22:49

YANBU. I am utterly shocked at these OP. I think i need to lie down. And i suggest a series of counselling sessions for your child and you to talk through some of the issues and concerns such disturbing images might throw up. Do you have somebody in RL you can talk to about these images?

TiggyD · 15/08/2013 08:10

You'll need to avoid airshows and museums with planes in them.

fluffyraggies · 15/08/2013 08:17

YANBU OP and think it's crap that the sexualisation of women should be dragged into a child's toy with the excuse in the name of making it historically accurate.

Frenchatty · 15/08/2013 08:20

Ynbu.

Wuxiapian · 15/08/2013 08:30

YANBU.

How strange.

JenaiMorris · 15/08/2013 08:32

What Tiggy said.

Original poster
TheSecretSquirrel · 15/08/2013 09:53

Context is everything.

It's not the pictures themselves that are so shocking (that's a whole other debate, but let's not go there just yet). It's the context. This is a child's book. There is no reference to historical planes or why (any of) the stickers are relevant. The stickers of the girls just look incongruous. A bit like sticking a page 3 girl in the middle of the Beano.

"you are looking at it from an adults perspective" - yes, I am. But that's the point. If kids are seeing these images they just seep into their sub-conscious that it's quite normal for girls to look/act like that without understanding the sexual undertones.

IMO it's just not age appropriate. But I can see that not everyone agrees.

OP posts:
LynetteScavo · 15/08/2013 10:04

kids will see a dressed up animal picking something up.

Erm....me too. Grin

Feminine · 15/08/2013 10:09

They are rubbish. YANBU. On the plus side, I doubt any child would want to stick them anywhere...especially not a boy!

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