Oooo, good question! Whenever this happens I am always really torn, because honestly my tastes--and my value system, honestly--haven't changed very much if at all since I was a child. It also happens relatively infrequently because I was educated in a very politically-correct environment; few of the books we read in grade school were about WHITE people, let alone RICH ones!
The other source of media input in my childhood was my mother, who read me a lot of books from her childhood and with whom I watched a lot of Star Trek TNG and Fred Astaire. With anything from a long time ago, my mom was very careful to provide me with context. Reading that stuff now--books like HALF MAGIC or MRS. PIGGLE-WIGGLE--I'm startled by the bizarre behavior of the adult women. But I wouldn't say that those issues were problematic because, when I was reading them, it was like reading about a fantasy world where mothers have nothing better to do than bake brownies and meddle in their children's lives, where everyone has plenty of money and crime doesn't exist. It didn't have an impact on my expectations or my value systems. The points those books made that were relevant to my life, about friendship and good manners, aren't problematic at all. I think the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books actually teach kids really important lessons about personal agency and responsibility.
On the other hand, thanks to Disney films I persisted for many, many years in the belief that one's beauty as a female was judged on one's singing voice and the length of one's hair.
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Date: 2009-11-13 08:42 pm (UTC)The other source of media input in my childhood was my mother, who read me a lot of books from her childhood and with whom I watched a lot of Star Trek TNG and Fred Astaire. With anything from a long time ago, my mom was very careful to provide me with context. Reading that stuff now--books like HALF MAGIC or MRS. PIGGLE-WIGGLE--I'm startled by the bizarre behavior of the adult women. But I wouldn't say that those issues were problematic because, when I was reading them, it was like reading about a fantasy world where mothers have nothing better to do than bake brownies and meddle in their children's lives, where everyone has plenty of money and crime doesn't exist. It didn't have an impact on my expectations or my value systems. The points those books made that were relevant to my life, about friendship and good manners, aren't problematic at all. I think the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books actually teach kids really important lessons about personal agency and responsibility.
On the other hand, thanks to Disney films I persisted for many, many years in the belief that one's beauty as a female was judged on one's singing voice and the length of one's hair.