Err, A Parent

Exposing a Child to, & Protecting him from, the Classics

by Susan Galardi

"Women and girls alike wore topless dresses, gems in their hair and a most beguiling scent made by slaves who had been blinded so that their noses would grow more keen."

--Chapter on Daedalus, Heroes & Monsters of Greek Myth, Evslin, Evslin & Hoopes.

Needless to say, I don't know where to begin with this passage, which I read to our son last night. His godfather had given him his time-worn yet lovingly-handled paperback books of mythology. Hudson and Rodney have many things in common - a love of Disney movies, superheroes and comic book characters. Mythology turned out to be another one.

Let me preface this by saying my partner and I review those Y-7 rated cartoons before we allow him to watch them. We read the fine print on PG-rated films to really get a sense of what is objectionable. I've edited fairy tales as I've read them to him, especially when he was in Pre-K (Brothers Grimm tales were always verboten). Damn, I even changed the words to Rock-a-Bye Baby because I thought they were too disturbing before bed. I sing "When the bough breaks, the cradle will fly, up to the clouds and into the sky."

So I knew going in that myths would require an edit-on-the-fly.

I started out with the simple ones. Icarus. Midas. But in this edition, Heroes & Monsters of Greek Myth, Evslin, Evslin & Hoopes, even the latter was challenging. Consider this passage, after Midas touches his daughter:

"The little blue vein in her neck stopped pulsing."

Or this, when he tried to eat a piece of bread:

"He reached into his mouth and pulled out a golden slab of bread, all bloody now ..."

Granted, it's very colorful writing. But I found it to be horribly disturbing, especially before bed.

But I'm sure our son, who has described himself as "brave of everything" since he was about three, could handle it and would most likely love the lines.

But I protected him from them. I want him to know the classics, but a sweeter version. A Disney version - never mind, that gets grizzly these days. After all, the dragon in Sleeping Beauty does drip with drops of blood. Maybe a Noggin version - nah, that would include those annoying high pitched voices.

Maybe it will remain the Mumma version. At least until he starts to read these more complex books by himself, I can try to protect him from the horrors of mythology and other classics.

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