AIBU to be worried by outdated children’s books being read to our preschooler?

[Dirtymirrors]

Name changed for this. I'm feeling uncomfortable with things but am in a slightly sensitive situation and I don't want to make it harder than it needs to be.

My DH recently lost his mother and only lost his father a few years ago. He has brought a lot of books and other things from the family home to ours which he wants to keep. I am trying not to mind most of it. The problem is the children's books. Which he is now reading to our preschool child. They are very dated and the portrayal of other cultures is stereotypes and insensitive. This ranges from the mildly offensive such as Rupert to some really horrendous caricatures in books from the 50's.

Do I say anything? I want my DD to grow up with a good understanding of different cultures and norms not stereotypes and racism. I don't want to make anything harder on my DH though.

Just to be clear DH is not racist he just thinks that the atmosphere we create will have far more influence than the books. He also does discuss why certain themes and pictures are wrong with DD.

YABU = the books are harmless don't be so worried.

YANBU = I would not be comfortable with this either.

There was one Topsy & Tim story that featured them blacking up to supposedly 'look like Gypsies'. They didn't use that story in the CBeebies adaptation from a few years ago...

I grew up with outdated stereotypes in Rupert and Enid Blyton in the 1980s and am not a racist or anti 'woke'. Also read some of them to my own DDs. These views exist now. I'd rather bring them up and talk about them and say these books are old fashioned but certainly not off limits.

They really sparked my imagination as a child. A lot of classic literature could be banned if you screen it for modern sensibilities.

I'd let him read it as it's probably part of him keeping his parents' memories alive and tangentally is his way of making sure your children have a connection to the grandparents they'll grow up without.

Also, I'm not a fan of banning great art/music/literature because it is either offensive to standards that didn't exist when the works were produced, or because the creator is unpalatable by modern day standards. Roald Dahl, Charles Dickens, Enid Blyton... should they fall out of print?

I've read some old classics to mine and I've always prefaced each offensive bit with a "now, this is a racist term that is completely unacceptable now. If you said this at school now, you would upset someone and definitely get in trouble." I've had to be quite prescriptive with this as one of mine has autism and can be simultaneously very factual- slash-blunt and oblivious to what could be racist. We are white British so have never experienced racism ourselves and he's so far had a lovely little life of not witnessing it towards others. Reading these books has opened a dialogue about what racism is and why it's unacceptable and how it could make people feel etc in a contextual way he can understand.

We then choose an alternative character name that isn't racist. Not as wholesome as it sounds, as he usually chooses a toilet-humour themed name like Mr Stinky Butt or Princess Knickers-on-the-Moon, but does increase his engagement!

Voted YABU but I don't agree the books are harmless. I read plenty when I was a kid which are horrible, looking back.
But, if he is discussing why certain things are problematic in them, then he's doing a good job (you said he's discussing why they're wrong).
It will be good for your daughter to understand how ideas were different in the past and how they are unacceptable now.

The key thing for me is that your husband is discussing why certain things are problematic which gives a really good foundation for your children going forward. You can't shield them from being exposed to these views and stereotypes later in life and they will have a language to reason why these views are inappropriate.
It's no different from watching old disney films which are hugely problematic. We still do and have discussions about it.

Not to derail, but did any anybody else see the episode of Sam Campbell's Make That Movie, where there was a long-standing, much-loved character called Yooglet... and wince knowingly when it later emerged that some of the earlier Yooglet stories had aged appallingly?!

We read loads of old books from our childhood and other classics to DD when she was young. The bedtime story ritual continued until she was nearly 11, even though she was a fluent reader long before then, because we all enjoyed it so much. It gave us the opportunity to introduce her to books she almost certainly wouldn't have encountered otherwise. If the language or ideas were out-dated we discussed it at the time.

My DD and I have enjoyed reading older books and being shocked at the amount of slapping in Malory Towers, for example.
@AtomicBlondeRose I read these to DD when she was about 7 and she loved them. But what impressed me was when she said she thought the girls were a bit bullying towards Gwendoline. In all my childhood that had never occurred to me. I assume that modern attitudes to this in school are doing their job.

I talked about how silly the adults were being (I liked how the one other child there was insisting to their mum that it was William) but as he was half asleep already I didn't start a conversation about blackface because guaranteed in his tired state he'd misunderstand a key part or only remember the fact of blackface and start talking about it in school without context! Much easier to explain with the Christmas tradition in my country that used to involve a child blacking their face with burnt cork and nowadays that doesn't happen, and why)

I think the story was mocking the adults making ignorant assumptions about the supposed African boy - they said oh he probably doesn't talk English so William starts talking gibberish and they believe its an actual language and one even claims to understand it and 'translates' for the rest!

Just to add, when DD was little she used to read The Beano.
One time we were in a holiday cottage and she found old 70s and 80s Beano annuals (the era I used to read).
She found it hilarious that corporal punishment was normal (caning and slippering), she couldn't believe some of the outdated racial stereotypes (nobody went to Africa without encountering natives with bones through noses).
OK, she was older, and already knew this was wrong, but as long as your DH is pointing this out, should be fine.

For some reason, Enid Blyton is like crack to smaller children. I was obsessed with her books as a child, and have grown up to be the most opinionated leftie feminist. I think children are actually surprisingly good at sorting out fiction from real life - particularly if they read a lot. We had a black family living next door I was great friends with and so racist caricatures in old books just seemed rather silly to me.
I loved / hated Rupert as a child because of Raggity and the wood! It was so scary but I wanted to read it!

It's not "being exposed to bigoted crap" though is it? It's classic books, culture and history some of which do not fit with modern sensibilities.

Online is where you are most often exposed to bigoted crap, especially here, and unfiltered. Actually sharing book with a child where there are old fashioned views could help them with critical thinking when their algorithms give them "stop the boats" crud.

Not to mention the ableist, misogynistic and racist content I see on here every day. That's what worries me, not Rupert the Bear. It was old fashioned when I read it in the 1980s but I knew that and it gave me a perspective way beyond the era I was living in.

I've got a copy of an old children's book by Jimmy Savile. Of course, it's horrendous looking back - especially as it was a book about God and JS was claiming to teach faith-based perspectives (which seemed weird at the time, as I don't recall him ever talking about or being supposedly known for a strong faith in general) - but I'm hanging on to it as an example of just one of the horrors of history.

Richmal Cropmton is very good at that, the gentle skewering of various adult silliness when viewed through a child's eyes.
Ah, I think I know where youre from then.

I agree. I read loads of Enid Blyton books as a child and my vocabulary was always advanced for my age.

When I was a child we had a book called The Children’s Picture Atlas in Colour. I loved that book. Instilled a lifelong fascination with distant places and peoples. However it did have some rather dodgy references in the African section e.g a photo of an African man walking down a path on his way to “a pagan shrine”. We got a later edition of the book eventually (which I still have) and all the dodgy colonial type references had been neutralised.

Older books tend to actually have a story that fuels the imagination, unlike the more modern books where many of them lack any substance and contain propaganda. It is possible to read older books that contain more outdated scenes without becoming a misogynist and a racist.

Is your husband racist/sexist? Presumably not... The fact that you're having these discussions with him about what's acceptable and what effect these books may have shows how healthy your relationship is. These discussions are important and interesting and there is room for different opinions among people with the same values.

I'm in my mid 60s and was brought up on Noddy, Enid Blyton, Tintin, Biggles etc, all full of very obvious racist stereotypes and more insidious sexist narratives. I'm still a huge Tintin fan. My siblings and I all turned out OK, I think, even though our parents never discussed sexism or racism with us

Books are important but not so important that reading the Famous Five will poison your kids. Language, vocabulary, grammar learned from well-written, age-appropriate literature will make your children articulate and sensitive

Exactly this 👏

Struwwelpeter was literally the only book I ever hid from my children. Some friends living in Germany at the time sent it and, despite the foreign language, the illustrations were horrific.

I loved my Rupert annuals,especially the magic painting. Not sure I was influenced by talking animals (was it in rhyme?) having improbable adventures, but I did like his red jumper.

I used to absolutely love the Beano and the Dandy when I was a child. Back in the 80s and 90s, they were still firmly stuck in the 40s back then - they very clearly reflected a much earlier time than my own. They've since updated them and, imho, they've lost some of the olde-world charm that I used to love them for.

As a child, it never remotely occurred to me that Walter the Softie might be being stereotyped as gay; but looking back as an adult, I can see why they've now changed his character to make him the strong and just-as-devious nemesis of Dennis, rather than skipping about the meadow picking buttercups and hosting teddy bears' picnics, as he used to.

Its one of the reasons I love the books so much. Was much amused with last night's story where Mr Brown talks much more than usual and its clear where William gets his style of talking and his defence of his ideas from!

Star Boys - I loved doing the play when I was a child but when I watched the video my dad took one year it was rather jarring to see my brother coloured with cork.

Children are more intelligent than you give them credit for. We shouldn’t bin a whole load of books because they don’t fit modern sensibilities. It’s quite easy to discuss with a child that in days gone by people thought differently. Maybe we are sensitive because of the colonial connections or the feeling that Brits were inherently superior. When I lived in France, I wasn’t remotely offended by the stereotyping of me as a Brit. My son married a foreigner-they laugh about the assumptions of her parents because she was marrying a Brit. It wouldn’t occur to him to be offended.

Whats wrong with pong or ping ? Don't know about China but they heh are common names in Thailand

YANBU There are certain sets of Enid Blyton books I'd have never have read to my child.

I grew up reading those books and even with an openly racist Dad, I'm none of the things that are prevalent in them. Once they're old enough, you can explain why they're an issue in modern times, they'll be fine.

The real problem is that modern books do not have the same sense of adventure that many older books have.
Here I am thinking of the series by Enid Blyton - The Island of Adventure, and those with similar names.
Also, books by Malcolm Saville. They all feature young children getting into adventures, but also being very independent, which children of a young age are not nowadays). I would say the MS books feature teeenagers, tho.
However, of course, the EB books are terribly old fashioned in that the family is very 'middle class' with a servant/cook of some sort, which I am sure very few children these days have. And it is usually the girls that cry/ make the sandwiches (for the boys, etc).
The children are all white, and many children would not identify wuth the way of life.
In fact, I am now retired, but even my parents laughed at the line in 'The Railway Children',(by Edith Nesbit) in which the family were SO poor, mother asked the cook to make a plain pudding (instead of presumably a plum pudding - meaning with sultanas, etc) - I was a child at the time, so I am talking about the 1950s - 1960s, so the book was dated even then, and my parents were commenting on the fact that the family still had a cook!!!.
But in my opinion, a few of the EB books don't really do any harm, as long as children are interested in them.
The main thing is to find books (and any books), that are age appropriate, and which they love reading, to foster a love of reading.