Not allowed to see/read news?

[xub3rn00dlex]

On my way to work today on the 2 train going downtown to chambers, I stood next to a nanny taking care of 2 bourgeoisie class children, I'd assume around the age of 10-11. I was a little dumbfounded when one of the kids kept reaching for the nanny's newspaper [ NYT if relevant ] only to prompt a response by the nanny - word for word:

Nanny: "Quit that. You know you are not allowed to read and watch the news."
Kid: "But mom lets me read sports."
Nanny: "Ok, but only the sports section." *Hands him sports section only*

Did I witness the deliberate bourgeoisie brainwashing of children here? Can anyone explain this to me? Has anyone witnessed something similar?

[PhoenixAsh]

Some parent think the news is too violent for kids and they want to protect them from it because they think it is not appropriate for children. And yes...that is some form of disassociation.

[xub3rn00dlex]

Some parent think the news is too violent for kids and they want to protect them from it because they think it is not appropriate for children. And yes...that is some form of disassociation.

You see I'd understand that if they were around 5 or 6. I've been keeping up with news since I could pretty much read and write, and comprehend lol. #1 Student in current events all throughout elementary :D

[Die Rote Fahne]

I've watched CNN with my grandparents and local news and CBC with my parents my whole life.

I'm smarter for it. I pity kids who aren't allowed, or don't.

[Tablo]

I think that is kind of weird. I don't remember my parents ever saying stuff like that. Then again I didn't get interested in watching/reading the news and studying politics until high school.

[Misanthrope]

If anything my parents would make me watch the news and force their opinion on me.

[Red Commissar]

I would imagine a lot of people think the news is "negative" and don't like the news of violence and death. They don't want their children exposed to that, similar to their arguments with violent movies or "inappropriate" songs.

I don't think it's as devious as brainwashing though. A good deal of your opinions are formed from your activities with other people as is reading information, so simply feeding people one set of information isn't enough to "brainwash" someone.

TBH it's hard to find children who are even interested in politics anyways. Most people begin developing that at some point in their teenage years or as late as their early adult years- personally I would find it amusing to see an eight year old reading a newspaper and actually understanding it.

[-marx-]

If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. ~ commonly attributed to Mark Twain or Thomas Jefferson

If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. ~Malcolm X

I am unable to understand how a man of honor could take a newspaper in his hands without a shudder of disgust. ~Charles Baudelaire


These quotes pretty well sum up my opinions on "news".

:D

[Tablo]

If anything my parents would make me watch the news and force their opinion on me.
If I had kids I'm afraid I might be that kind of parent... :/

[ZeroNowhere]

These quotes pretty well sum up my opinions on "news".

:DI can't say that I disagree entirely.

In any case, the bourgeoisie are not the bloody Freemasons.

[Zav]

If I had kids I'm afraid I might be that kind of parent... :/
I have a feeling that the attitude and purpose of Lefties doing this is different than that of the Righties. Righties want total obedience from their kids while we Lefties want our kids to think for themselves.

[Ocean Seal]

I've watched CNN with my grandparents and local news and CBC with my parents my whole life.

I'm smarter for it. I pity kids who aren't allowed, or don't.
Likewise, but the strange thing here is that parents prevent children from reading what would be considered a rather mainstream newspaper. Maybe the parents are of the opinion that their children shouldn't concern themselves with politics. Such that they can only consider their individualist goals and not truly understand or empathize with a world filled with a series of horrible things. In any case bad on the parents and nanny who don't seek to enlighten the children.

[Blake's Baby]

I wouldn't have a problem with my kids reading newspapers, but I do censor their access to TV news (well, my youngest at least).

I vividly remember the first time I saw someone actually being shot on the news (that wasn't the Kennedy assasination) in 2000 when a British diplomat was assassinated in Greece - British TV news had to my knowledge never actually shown that before. You certainly didn't get that when I was a kid, and we watched the news every night (my dad was a journo).

Standards of reporting, sensationalism and what is considered appropriate have changed a lot in the last 35 years and I'm not happy about my youngest seeing some of the things that go on, and are considered suitable to broadcast.

But even so, you can't shelter kids totally from the news. In 2001 my eldest (who was then about 4) had a game where plastic farm animals would be transported upside-down in trucks. This was the middle of the UK's farming crisis when hundreds of thousands of sheep & cows were slaughtered due to Foot & Mouth Disease restrictions. This game stopped in September 2001 when it was replaced by building large Lego towers and crashing toy aircraft into them.

[Sixiang]

I suppose it is a form of brainwashing through ignorance. I never really had that problem with my parents. It's just that while we were hearing the news, they would put in all of their opinions throughout it. My parents weren't interested in me opposing them or having different opinions from them. My dad always said I was to vote Republican like he did when I got old enough. And my mom just dislikes politics so much that she hates talking about it.

[Tablo]

I wouldn't have a problem with my kids reading newspapers, but I do censor their access to TV news (well, my youngest at least).

I vividly remember the first time I saw someone actually being shot on the news (that wasn't the Kennedy assasination) in 2000 when a British diplomat was assassinated in Greece - British TV news had to my knowledge never actually shown that before. You certainly didn't get that when I was a kid, and we watched the news every night (my dad was a journo).

Standards of reporting, sensationalism and what is considered appropriate have changed a lot in the last 35 years and I'm not happy about my youngest seeing some of the things that go on, and are considered suitable to broadcast.

But even so, you can't shelter kids totally from the news. In 2001 my eldest (who was then about 4) had a game where plastic farm animals would be transported upside-down in trucks. This was the middle of the UK's farming crisis when hundreds of thousands of sheep & cows were slaughtered due to Foot & Mouth Disease restrictions. This game stopped in September 2001 when it was replaced by building large Lego towers and crashing toy aircraft into them.
I can understand trying not to expose really young children to the violent content on tv and stuff. I do think there is a certain point where kids should be allowed to pursue there interests and watch the news though.

[Blake's Baby]

Oh, yeah I agree. But there's a certain amount of censoring that I do because I think that's responsible. I'd no more say 'here's the news channels, knock youreslf out' to an 8-year-old than say 'here's a a 15 or 18-rated movie, knock yourself out'.

[LewisQ]

Half of what I know, I learned from news I shouldn't have been allowed to watch, books I shouldn't have been allowed to read and movies I shouldn't have been allowed to see.

[ZeroNowhere]

Half of what I know, I learned from news I shouldn't have been allowed to watch, books I shouldn't have been allowed to read and movies I shouldn't have been allowed to see.That explains many things.

[xub3rn00dlex]

Thank you to all for your responses.

I agree that some censorship should be done to kids as some material is inappropriate for them, such as R rated movies unless they are teens and what not. But the news? I don't know how I feel about censoring the news. While I feel it is FILLED with agendas and exists to convert people to viewpoints rather than actually inform, I still feel as no matter how young you are you should still have the opportunity to learn what is going on out there and form your own viewpoint, even if its not very developed due to age.

I mean if you take a look at the mess in Greece, I'd say that it is a pretty important event currently going on. Whether or not a 10 year old chooses to empathize/sympathize with the Greek people or blames them for it, I feel sie should still be exposed to that event and what is going on. I don't think I could bring myself to censor my [future] kids [someday] about such an important occurrence, because it might be too violent - which it no doubt is. If they feel they cannot take the violence then it should be up to them to turn away from it, but if they can then wouldn't the goal be for them to ask "Why is this happening?" Idk, maybe kids aren't into world events/ politics today the way I was when I was growing up.

I don't have kids so I'm not sure whether my stance will change if I ever have any, so I guess only time will tell.

[Agent Ducky]

I've beenreading Newsweek and the LA times since I was 8 or 9. Kids definitely shouldn't be censored from that stuff if they can handle it/want to understand stuff...

[Misanthrope]

If I had kids I'm afraid I might be that kind of parent... :/

Yeah me too..

[Hiero]

I mean if you take a look at the mess in Greece, I'd say that it is a pretty important event currently going on. Whether or not a 10 year old chooses to empathize/sympathize with the Greek people or blames them for it, I feel sie should still be exposed to that event and what is going on. I don't think I could bring myself to censor my [future] kids [someday] about such an important occurrence, because it might be too violent - which it no doubt is. If they feel they cannot take the violence then it should be up to them to turn away from it, but if they can then wouldn't the goal be for them to ask "Why is this happening?" Idk, maybe kids aren't into world events/ politics today the way I was when I was growing up

The problem I read with pre-teen children watching the news is that they have a problem with identifying time and space. That means that if they see for instance the riots in Greece, or a man being shot and they don't determine that that is happening in another place and time. So they can assume that being shot could happen at any moment and that can cause a reasonable amount of anxiety.

Also while we see a riot, as a political occurance, childen just may see people being really aggresive, chaotic and violent. They can't say 'this is violence that is structured, a response to (food prices, welfare cuts) and not all people at any time dress up in black and smash things up". They could just assume that there are bad people out there who get together and create violence randomly. And also children haven't fully developed that abilitiy to "turn off", like be able to watch the news about people starving, die, being killed and continue on with dinner without any trauma.

[Zav]

And also children haven't fully developed that abilitiy to "turn off", like be able to watch the news about people starving, die, being killed and continue on with dinner without any trauma.
The media loves when people can do that. It makes them docile and open to advertisement.

[Blake's Baby]

I'm not sure why anyone thinks those of us on RevLeft who have kids are preventing them from finding out what is going on in the world. For instance, I spent 2 hours on Sunday discussing the concept of totalitarnarianism with my 13-year-old, and in recent weeks we've discussed at some length Libya, Syria, the struggles against austerity in Britain, proposals to change education law, and the state of anti-gay legislation in various places in the world (these are the things off the top of my head that I can remember); I also regularly discuss historical, theoretical and political events with my 8-year-old.

What I do not do is give them (especially the 8-year-old) unregulated, uncontextualised access to the cable news media. There's a fucking big difference there.

[Dimmu]

My bourgeoisie parents wanted me to watch news.. And man they did the wrong thing. Thanks to their efforts i started to pay attention to politics from an early age and it turned me into an anarchist. :)

[Hiero]

My bourgeoisie parents wanted me to watch news.. And man they did the wrong thing. Thanks to their efforts i started to pay attention to politics from an early age and it turned me into an anarchist. :)

Are you really from a bourgeois family?

[Die Rote Fahne]

I suppose it is a form of brainwashing through ignorance. I never really had that problem with my parents. It's just that while we were hearing the news, they would put in all of their opinions throughout it. My parents weren't interested in me opposing them or having different opinions from them. My dad always said I was to vote Republican like he did when I got old enough. And my mom just dislikes politics so much that she hates talking about it.

That was quite democratic of your father: " you are to vote republican".

I get the feeling that most republican families have this attitude.

[Zealot]

Could be brainwashing although I'm more inclined to think she was trying to protect him from "violence". However, it looks like the kid only wanted to read about sports anyway so maybe he is brainwashed

[Blake's Baby]

Maybe she wouldn't let him read the sports section because of the violence...

[xub3rn00dlex]

Maybe she wouldn't let him read the sports section because of the violence...

Yeah I mean god forbid somebody gets hurt in contact sports, that would be an outrage. I think perhaps this isn't as uncommon as I originally perceived it to be, as nowadays I see this whole "protect our children" attitude all over the place. My elementary school banned kickball, dodgeball, poison [free for all dodgeball] etc. etc. because they were too violent. It's all protect our kids from violence, germs, the media, the leftists! Nobody ever gets to play in the park with a stick for a couple of hours anymore... the shit my little self could imagine lol. I was always pissed when it was time to go home.

[Blake's Baby]

Well, those hockey people can get quite tetchy I've been told.

[Sixiang]

That was quite democratic of your father: " you are to vote republican".

I get the feeling that most republican families have this attitude.

Yep. Honestly, I am amazed at some of the ignorant and downright stupid things my father says. He often contradicts himself and promotes ultra right-wing anti-intellectual nationalism without a second thought. I live in a very conservative part of America and many people around here have that similar attitude. It's frustrating to live with to say the least.