To not want my dd (6) to know that some dads don't see their children?

[megapixels]

My dd, in Year 2, has got a book of short stories - and one of them is a chapter from Anne Fine's Crummy Mummy and Me. It's the one where the girl goes looking for her biological dad, whom she has never met until then (she is around 9 I think). AIU to skip that story and ask that the teacher not give her books of the sort in future? Dd was distressed enough when she knew that one of her friends has a step mother when her real mother was alive . I did explain to her about seperated families and that step mothers are not like those portrayed in fairy tales. She seems to have forgotten though as she was recently puzzling over "I went to my dad's" that had been written by someone in the class teddybear diary.

At this age I really don't want her to know that some dads (and mums) don't want to see their children. How do you explain that anyway? It would be different if it had to be discussed with her because of a real situation (eg. a friend at school) but is it so wrong that she thinks that all children live with their mums and dads who love them very much? She has time to learn about the realities of the world in her own time through her own experiences without it being forced on her, isn't it? She's only 6, nearing 7. AIBU?

I sort of have a feeling for what OP might be getting at - in that I'd rather deal with an actual situation with dd's friends and their families, rather than deal with an author's take on any given situation (I don't know anything about Anne Fine, she may well be fantastic, but with any given author you're always at risk at dealing with his/her moral viewpoint, because, obviously, they're in charge of the story, language used etc). So I'm quite content that dd has friends with one parent, same sex parents, grandparents or whatever, and that her own home life can be a little complicated (as a previous poster, dp and I are biological parents to the two girls, but her grandparents are split and remarried - the biggest headache there being thinking of so many words for Grandmother/Grandfather ), but I don't want to have to unexplain someone else's thoughts on the matter which might have worried dd.

Yes yabu. I think the best way for her to learn about this is in a secure loving enviroment. You could use this book to your advantage to discuus this subject in a secure loving enviroment. This will help her deal with the situation better if it ever happens to someone she cares about, if she is blissfully unaware it would probably upset her greatly. You cant keep them in a bubble, my ds1 is also in year 2 and for the last year has had a girl in his class who is fostered, he is actually good friends with her, both her parents are alive but she was taken away as her 'mummy and daddy were not very nice to me', do you not think your dd hearing that at school would shock her and upset her more if she was blissfully unaware

this is just my oppinion but i would never shelter my children in such a way, they are lucky enough to have me and my partner together but who knows how it will be in the future.

the reality is that families are made up of alsorts my dd is 4 she has had stories about different families one really similar to what you describe and i thought it wa fantastic.

how can anyone possibly want to bring a child up exluding them from reality its not as if kids are having to read books about parents getting murdered or anything.

Its just an educational book about a real life family situation, nothing aeful or shocking there.xxx

YANBU -I totally get where you are coming from.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to protect your DD from life's imperfections. In an ideal world all children would be loved unconditionally by both their parents.

yanbu - there are many family situations and when your dd comes across a different setup she'll just accept it. You don't need a story for that.

When is it going to be okay for your PFBs to know that life is not the Waltons? Let's hope none of their friends' parents ever split up or die or something - your kids are going to be so shocked they won't be able to be supportive

This thread has really pissed me off

I don't think you are being unreasonable. If you find the story of a child looking for her biological father a bit too much top deal with for a 6 year old then you don't have to read it to her, but i do think at some point it will need to be addressed, but this should be in your own time. I think people flaming you on here are being way over the top and reactionary. I think 6 is still quite young. I didn't know about adopted kids until i met one when i was 8. At 6 i still believed in Santa, i loved fairies, i thought musicals wre real (and kept trying to burst into song) and didn't know anyone whose parents were divorced. I dealt with these things as and when they happened (when was i was 11 i went to boarding school and 2 years later half the girls at school had parents who got divorced - they were all very bitter at being sent away whilst mum and dad broke up). I know kids are resilient, but there is no need to force issues on children. If you would rather wait a year or two then fine. She is still very young and should be enjoyig her childhood - including believing in fairies if she wants to because that is what being a kid and living with a furtile imagination is all about.

I wouldn't start saying some parents don't love their kids and hurt them etc etc - at 6 i'd be having nightmares about that. Let her be a child and enjoy these years and tell her when you think she is ready.

OP: I do think you're being unreasonable. Reading Crummy Mummy and Me is really not going to damage your 6 year old daughter in any way. Indeed, you should probably look on it as a valuable opportunity to discuss issues like this with your DS. This is especially important since you seem certain that the issue would be unlikely to come up socially (for the moment anyway--I wouldn't be so certain that it'll stay that way). I would be really angry if I thought that my son's access to certain books or ideas at school was limited because some quite narrow minded parents had complained about them.

Also, on fairy tales and moral ambiguity... Millyr: have you actually read the fairy tales by the Brother's Grimm or any of the other 19th century tale collectors? Or do you only know about the saccharine Disney-esque versions? Let me assure you that they're far from 'morally certain' and many of them are amoral if not immoral. Indeed, even the santised versions we're all familiar with are far from unproblematic (the portrayal of stepmothers, for example, is one of their many problems).

Since you asked for a 'high-level' academic or philosophic discussion (well I assume you'd want the brief version of that, rather than to have someone write you a PhD thesis on the topic on mumsnet)... There are very good arguments to be made that sanitised and 'morally certain' children's literature is actually psychologically damaging for (even very young) children because it doesn't help them to deal with the scary uncertainties they come across in everyday life. There are also arguments to be made about the ways in which such literatures normalise and cement certain types of problematic social relations and (often implicitly) legitimise the marginalisation of certain social groups. If you want to follow any of this up, you might want to start with Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment (all very Freudian), or you could look at some of the literature on fairy tales by Jack Zipes, Marina Warner or Maria Tatar. There's also a really nice book about the uses of fairy tales in early childhood education by Bronwen Davies called Frogs and Snails and Feminist Tales.

YABU.

Get real and let your DD get real in a safe and easy way, through the book that has been written just for this purpose; to expose children who haven't had first or second hand experience of these situations.

My DD just turned 7 last week. Her Dad and I split up when she was two. He died last year when she was 6. She has dealt with this in a way that I would never have imagined that a child that young could have. We now live me DP of 2.5 years and she has also taken this in her stride and welcomed him, in fact she is grateful for his presence.

Children are not a different species that need to be handled in a completely alien way. They are just smaller, immature adults and it's out job as parents to help them mature into well rounded people. By keeping this side of life and relationships from your daughter you are not helping her to see all aspects of life and to digest them, thats part of your role as her Mum.

Of course it's your call when she learns about things but you're making her into too much of an innocent and she will not appreciate it.

Take off the rose coloured glasses, you don't need them, real life aint that bad!

Have to add i agree with Monkey feathers on the point that you should not complain to the school if it affects other people's reading material. If the school deems it ag appropriate then it most likely is, but if you don't think your daughter is ready for it then that is your choice.

Am not a fan of parent-led banning on reading material. Judy Blume books were banned at my first boarding school, which was stupid as they were aimed at my age group (8-11) and i could have done with a heads up on Are You There God, It's Me Margaret.

Can I just add that I think the OP is actually being quite reasonable. I think the original point was that she felt sad that her daughter had to learn about sad things at all and particularly that one issue that there are parents who don't love or want to see their children. I think she was genuinely asking if it would be unreasonable to act on these feelings and censor certain informations.

Some of you have been quite harsh. I don't think she has any problems with anyone else's situation just that she feels bad that some children have had sadness in their lives. Clearly children who've been through some of these things you are all describing will have had periods of sadness but the actual issue we are debating is whether or not children are damaged by this.

Personally, I think not, providing they have support - just like an adult going through a sad time. I also think in actual fact children are much more equipped to deal with uncertainty, change, sadness and difficulty because their own emotions are generally more extreme and everything in their lives is generally uncertain, changing and new ALL the time. I would disagree strongly with saying it is better to wait until children are older to introduce these things because generally as you age, your life, experiences and feelings become more and more stable and discovering these things for the first time can be MORE disturbing.

I get the distinct feeling that the OP wouldn't want her DD to be friends with my DC because it might upset her. I think that's more than harsh - it's horrible

my daughter is 3, and she knows that all families are not alike. early childhood is a good time to learn about differences in order to encourage tolerance. it's worrying that you want to protect your daughter from something so commonplace and normal.

I think she is more likely to be accepting of different family set up than when she gets older.

I don't really understand your problem with this I'm afraid.

Would I be right in assuming that the majority of posters who think that the OP is BU are from/part of a blended family and those who think she is not BU are not?

If so, I think there is a wider issue here - I'm just not sure what it is .

As I said, I think the Op is being unreasonable for wanting to "protect" her child from the realities of complex family structures - and also for her assumption that her dd doesn't know anyone who comes from a non-nuclear family. My family is very nuclear - dp and I have been together for 26 years!

However, I don't think she's being unreasonable for wanting to police her reading matter. The way such issues are addressed in some books is way too much for a 6 year old, however good a reader she is.

No offence Megapixels, but I'm a bit at your sentence "Dd was distressed enough when she knew that one of her friends has a step mother when her real mother was alive ". Smug-tastic or what?

Not everyone can have such a perfect little chocolate box life as yours, that's what I reckon.

DD would probably benefit from seeing life as it is, not as a Happy Families PR person would present it.

Six is plenty old enough to learn about stuff like this too imho. It may stop her offending lots of people in the future with her reactions to perfectly normal life situations.

I'm not part of a "blended" family, btw.

I explained why his best friend's Father didn't live with him to DS1 this morning. He is 5, he isn't traumatised by my explanation as far as I can see.
I have already explained divorce/remarriage to him as my parents are divorced.
It is good to be open and honest with children and they can take on board far more than you'd expect.
I'd rather my DS's quiz me about things than their classmates tbh.

I'm not from a 'blended' family (which sounds slightly painful TBH). But that doesn't mean I can't see that an awful lot of our friends, and most importantly DC's friends, are. It isn't unusual.

Hmm, thedolly, there could be something in that.
I don't know, I just shudder at the thought of my DS's growing up thinking that only families like their are "normal" and that it is Odd for children to be brought up by one parent/have stepsiblings/whatever.
I remember being embarrassed about my parents divorce and hating having explain to other children. Although it seems "blended families" and divorce are more prevalent now I wouldn't want them making another child feel bad about their situation.

Having to explain to.....

Sees completely ridiculous to me and YABVVVVU. We are a very 2.4 family at the moment so don't think that has anything to do with it. I think stories are brilliant for exploring difficult concepts. My dd is 3 and is able to cope with all the different families in her films etc (it's me that cries at Finding Nemo )

I wouldn't have liked anyone 'policing' my reading as a DC-I read anything and everything. Traditional fairy stories are far worse than anything written by Anne Fine.

The op hasn't returned? How strange.......or not!!