Censorship

I really enjoyed reading for class this week, and I'm pretty positive there will be great discussion coming out of them. This is a topic that I struggle with. From the perspective of the profession, I do not advocate for censorship and firmly believe that it is a parent's responsibility to know what their children are doing, reading, watching, etc., and it is not the library's responsibility to tell a child that they may not read or watch anything.

However, with my other job, I work with children from the ages 18 months through 18 years old. Being with the kids for any amount of time during an evening, a lot of topics and questions can come up. I've had a nine year old child ask me if I was drinking whiskey out of my water bottle. (The answer, of course, was NO.) But what am I supposed to say when an eight year old then looks up at me and asks, "What's whiskey?" I don't have kids, I'm not married, and I don't feel like it is my responsibility or my right to explain alcohol to an eight year old. For a more career related incident, I have had a nine year old say to a group of seven to ten year old kids that no one is allowed to see the movie The Golden Compass because the characters in the movie turn their backs on God and that it refers to demons. My job has nothing to do with librarianship, or even intellectual freedom for that matter, so I didn't respond to the comments, but instead I moved on with what I am paid to do. I think that there are times when a non-parent adult should censor themselves around children, not because the child cannot handle certain topics, but because any potential harm done to the child or questions the child may have are most likely only going to be dealt with by the parent. I would rather not have an angry parent stop bringing their child where I work because I overstepped my bounds; I'll no longer have a job if parents do not pay for their children to attend activities.

As this is a sticky and complicated situation, what I am saying in the above is from my experience and can only be applied directly to situations similar to those I face in my p/t job.