In 2021, a thorough review of every children’s book in the public library was conducted at the order of the Llano County Commissioners Court. At its heart is the worry of the parents and lawmakers that children have access to books inappropriate for kids. That makes sense when it comes to a graphic description of sex and violence. However, this review seems to be about more than that. It leads to banning books in the libraries.

It comes at the heels of Texas state rep. Matt Krause’s inquiry into Texas school libraries’ content, asking school and district libraries if they have books from a list of 850, how many copies, and how much they spend on it.

Specifically he asks the superintendents to identify any other books available that contain amongst others any of these topics: “…contain material that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”

This seems like a rather broad mandate. It may cover a lot of books and anything that deals with history or even hints at covering anything that can be even a bit controversial and may require the students to think and debate.

Kids can handle it even when the adults can’t

Kids are, by their nature, very resilient. It seems that the parents worry too much and become so overprotective that they are making their children fragile and weak. That is a mistake that will lead to a weak, fearful society full of adults who are set in their ways, can’t think critically, can’t debate, and turn to authorities any time they don’t like anything. Do we want to protect our children from anything they can learn in books?

As Paul Tapp, an attorney with the Association of Texas Professional Educators, notes, “The point of public education is to introduce the world to students. It’s not there to protect students from the world.”

“Wouldn’t it be better for the kids to learn about various perspectives, think critically, listen to others, recognize manipulation and fake news, and respectfully debate to explain their views?”

As for reasons why parents are so overprotective? One of them summarized it rather nicely, “I’m hoping that the library sees that we’re not trying to censor books that we’re trying to protect our children. I mean, the library was one of the last places that we could feel safe.”

Even though the world is safer than at any point in history, some parents are so scared that they don’t see it safe at all. Now, even libraries are becoming dangerous for their kids as they could learn something and widen their perspective on the world.

When did society become so fragile that students must be protected from reading about topics they may not like? What sort of adults will they become?

Wouldn’t it be better for the kids to learn about various perspectives and think critically, listen to others, recognize manipulation and fake news, and respectfully debate to explain their views?

Prepare children for life

In The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff talk about several concepts to prepare children for life. I picked a couple that resonated strongly with me and that have the biggest impact.

You should prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child – children need the opportunity to experience the real world on their own so they learn and grow. They need enough unstructured and unsupervised time to learn to judge the risks, understand their capabilities, become resilient, and learn to deal with boredom and frustration. They need to be able to ask questions and search for answers wherever these lead. They need to learn how to solve problems and disagreements on their own.

Being constantly protected from the real world won’t teach them anything useful. They only learn to run to authorities for protection in the face of the smallest of adversity, giving the authorities immense power. That is a danger to democracy.

You should teach your child self-awareness – as Haidt and Lukianoff suggest, even your worst enemy can’t hurt you the way your own thoughts can. Even the ancient Stoics knew this being the case as they knew it is not events that disturb us, but our opinions of them.

Regardless of what you experience or what you read, it is your interpretation of the event or the text that you create in your mind that makes you feel a certain way. If you believe your child would be hurt by something they read, teach them to interpret what they read in a safe way.

Always see the best in other people – this ability of self-awareness and knowledge of how to interpret the world around us more positively also means we need to teach our children to give others the benefit of the doubt. In fact, we need to start doing it ourselves. What was the original intention of the text when it was written? Was it meant to cause harm? Was it just to describe what the writer experienced? Or was it even meant as a cautionary tale we should learn from?

Support constructive disagreement – the two things that are extremely important in today’s world and are often ignored at schools are critical thinking and constructive debate. Teaching our kids to think independently and not parrot everything they hear is key to them growing up responsible adults who will think critically before making up their minds. Having the ability to debate and have a constructive disagreement will then make them more resilient to the pressure of the world around them and less susceptible to manipulation.

What is the broader implication of banning books

Ultimately, the conversation about banning books in libraries because reading them may not be “safe” for children is a conversation about the future of democracy.

Using the word “safe” in this context demeans the real meaning of the word. Going to fight in a war is not safe. Going to read books at the library has nothing to do with safety. Let’s stop abusing the language to pretend they are the same.

Stepping out of our comfort zone and experiencing a bit of anxiety or distress while learning is part of life. That is how we grow and become resilient and able to deal with whatever life throws at us.

Taking away from our children the freedom to experience real life, learn about our history, form their own opinions, think, disagree, and debate is creating a generation of adults who will get used to taking freedom from others.

Overprotecting our children from the perceived harm of libraries is endangering their future as free citizens of a democratic society.

What is your take on the topic? Are libraries unsafe environments? What does safety actually mean? Do you believe that banning books solely on whether they can “trigger” children is a good idea? How would you then make sure they learn how to deal with ideas and arguments that go against their beliefs?

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