Prude? I don't think so. They aren't, as you quite rightly point out, aesthetically enriching material. But everybody's got to eat a cupcake or some pork rinds once in a while. Kids need to be kids and to work out all those silly things, or they take them along when they're older.

Think of it this way: Children always test as a way to stake out their individuality, and it's up to the parents, being older and we hope wiser and smarter, to pick the things they are willing to go to the wall for. I will go to the wall over unchaperoned activities, smoking and other drug use, safe driving and bike safety, an assortment of other health issues, and the use of violence, on or by my children. Some people also go to the wall over religion -- not my way, but not my child, so defended by me as a fellow parent. If you go to the wall over everything, the child is left with two impressions: I'm not allowed to do anything, and Everything is equally important. The second is just not true, really, if you think about it, unless Mom or Dad is a control freak obsessed with the exercise of power and not exerting authority. The first leads to the child who is afraid to do anything, which is a sad, neurotic way to live, or will do whatever he wants as long as he can conceal it from the parent, a dangerous pattern that will undermine the parent's influence. If you have a few issues -- say, fashion, music, Captain Underpants -- which are really not that important to your core values, upon which you can heap disdain and then allow your children to "defy" you in a safe way, make their choices and establish their "not-you" identities, how cool is that? They win, you win, and when you really need to lay down the law, they will listen, because you listened to them.

I also think that, as a parent, you would be more prone to be involved in what your children were reading. Whether parents want to restrict age-appropriate reading material for their own children based on good taste or religious preference or anything else, or place no restrictions at all: that's fine, as long as the parents exercise conscious monitoring and involvement. That's their job, to supervise their own children's development.

Oh, something I wanted to ask. Isn't against the rules to start a sentence with a conjunction? I see it done in all types of writing.

My first impulse is to say yes. And I was going to. But I do it all the time myself. So here's a different source, somewhat more definitive than my dim memories of crucifying sentences on the blackboard in Sister Rene's class. Scroll down to the blue box for the rule. I was surprised.

Cheers--
Mary Anne