The problem is that the cycle I described in my original post isn’t limited to the interactions between parents and their own children. It spreads. This week a Toronto father is upset that his 17-year-old son is reading The Handmaid’s Tale in school. This book and many others are perennial targets of attempted censorship, and I am thankful there are tireless defenders of everyone else’s right to explore new and challenging ideas.

It’s bad enough when parents try to set the academic curricula for all students, but yesterday I was reminded what’s worse: a teacher who seeks to shut down the study of difficult stories. An English teacher in Washington wants to strike The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Of Mice and Men, and To Kill A Mockingbird–all of which he acknowledges are classics with much to offer–for the sin of containing the “N-word” in the age of Obama. Nevermind that Obama himself has called for and initiated a frank discussion of race. Nevermind that the English teacher’s students are high school sophomores and juniors ostensibly capable of understanding the difference between this day in history and those past. These books should be struck down, he says, because it’s too hard to explain their merits to either students or their parents. We ask much of our teachers. Granted, they should not be the sole cultivators of young people’s ideas. But when we’ve reached the point that even they are too frustrated to bother shining a light on truth, it’s time to reassses how we arrived here.

As a mom of a 5-year old, part of me can understand completely why we want to protect our children from scary things. After all, when you have a small creature for whom you would willingly lay down your life, the urge to protect him or her from every small fear becomes overriding.

At the same time, I have a hard time understanding this impulse. The desire to lay down one’s life for one’s kids, yes. The rest? Well, I’ve always felt my job is not to protect him from every bump and scrape, but to help him become the best person he can be. That includes letting him experience things that might be a little scary, or confusing, or sad. My job isn’t to stand between him and life, but to help him understand it and make his way through.