Daddy Yankee announced this afternoon he was taking the kids to see Star Trek. I said OK, great. I needed the extra time to meet a Monday deadline on a story.
Then I remembered scanning a review of the movie in the paper. It’s rated PG-13 for sci-fi action and violence (no problem!) and brief sexual content (uh, problem).
I wondered how “brief”, and what exactly were we talking about here, anyway? Both of our kids are younger than 13, but factoring in the idea that kids are learning everything earlier, it might not be that big a deal.
Nevertheless, I don’t want to push any of this on them. Do I really want their first exposure to a bedroom scene to be at the movies with their dad? No. I’d rather it be at a friend’s house behind my back.
Juniper already makes a big production out of turning away when there’s some tween meeting of the lips on “The Suite Life of Zack & Cody”. Through a closed door, I’ll hear her scream to her brother, who is two feet away on the sofa, “Don’t look! Sick! SICK!!”
It’s a bit overdone, and I’m sure if I walk in, I’ll see eyes I couldn’t peel off the screen if I tried.
So I said to Daddy Yankee, “There’s sexual content in the movie.”
He looked at me as if I’d said, “I like tuna better than salmon.”
“Sexual content,” I said again.
“So?” he said. “They’ll look away.”
Look away. Like they looked away when one night we walked back to our Bed and Breakfast in New Orleans via Bourbon Street, on his recommendation, because it’d be “safer”.
Maybe I should have gone along. There are four young eyes and only two adult hands.
****
Oh they’re back! The review from 7-year-old Roofie: “It was awesome. You should’ve came.”
He was quiet for a minute. Then I heard him chuckle. “I keep thinking about it,” Roofie said. “This guy, he was making out with this woman….”
Daddy Yankee slapped his forehead. “I knew it, Roofie. I knew you were going to tell your mom.”
Take With Food 
I’m always surprised when some parents are mortified by sex and not by violence in entertainment.
Sex is natural. It’s the reason most of us are here.
Violence is horrific. It’s the reason some of us aren’t here anymore.
(Not that parents shouldn’t think about age-appropriateness of any of this. How many kids were dragged to “Saving Private Ryan?”)
I think gory violence is no good for young kids. But lesser violence is everywhere–cartoons, The Three Stooges. It’s the degree and I think the context. No kid is likely to get PTSD from seeing someone’s eye poked out, or Tom being charred to a crisp by Jerry. Sex is natural, but is it natural for younger kids to see it?