This is inspired by the latest "my parents won't let me buy the CDs I want" whinge thread.

I'm sure we all agree that given the very graphic and often disturbing nature of some film, literature, art and so on, it is important for parents to censor their children's consumption of same, at least at an early age. At least, my Western, faintly moralising mores tell me so. If you disagree with this fundamental, please don't hold your peace, but I'll assume for now that we don't little Jimmy to grow up all traumatised and warped.

I am equally sure that at some point this control needs to be withdrawn. One of an (able, mentally-fit and so forth) adult's rights is to be able to consume art, pulp, porn and other products as they see fit. For myself, at the age of almost twenty-one, I would be shocked to the core were my father to tell me that some book or film may not be appropriate to me.

But if we accept these two vaguely-defined boundary conditions to hold true-- almost absolute censorship during infancy and none in adulthood-- then an undefined region is left in between. And this is what I am interested in.

How should one taper a child's priveleges? I doubt that any healthy and normally-functioning (again, by my cultural standards and mores, humour me) family would attempt to hold iron control on a child until they reach some arbitrary age, most likely eighteen or twenty-one, and then let go completely. It follows that a progressive relaxation is called for-- but what over what age range, and how exactly ought it be handled? Will it really hurt little Jimmy, age 7, if he sees an R-rated movie with boobies and blood? Is it better that he be exposed to the realities (where applicable in the arts) earlier rather than later? And how then do we feel about James, age 14, or Jim, age 17? Further to this, should the "lines" be strictly-defined or blurry? I remember being forbidden from reading Stoker's Dracula; I'm not sure what age I was but would have been in the six to ten bracket somewhere. I was told that I could read it when I was thirteen. Is this kind of crystalline ordering a good idea, or does it give the child something concrete to rebel against?

And then there is the age-old issue of what qualifies as art. Typically things that are seen "art" are acceptable more quickly than things that are not, barring of course among the ultra-conservative. Are we comfortable with our imaginary fifteen-year-old looking at naked ladies on the internet? How about if the lady is made of stone and sitting in a museum? How about if she is back on the internet, but beautifully posed and photographed? This issue of course translates into the musical censorship idea that made me think about this tonight.

What of the internet in general? Is "parental protection" appropriate, desirable, or necessary? Is it all three? Is it none of the above?

I have deliberately left all of this quite nebulous, in order to allow the thread room to breathe and grow. Please, if one aspect of all of this grabs you in particular, seize on it and expand; I'd find that far more interesting than a post of short answers to each question that I have explicitly raised. I'm hoping for a flexible, but in-depth discussion here. But please, if you are currently in a position where your parents can/do exert this kind of control over you, don't whine about it here. If you have some interesting insights as a result of it, of course, by all means share. The purpose of this thread, however, is to consider the nuances of the control a parent can actually have over a child, and the moral and ethical implications; not to complain about their effect on you. I'm not trying to be a dick about it, even if I am succeeding; that's just not what I'm trying to provoke here.

I'd be particularly interested to hear from any parents hanging around. How have YOU handled it? And do you feel that you were right? And does being right matter? Is it difficult for you to regulate, or does it all come naturally?

I'm 15, and there is ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with a 15-year-old looking at 'naked ladies on the internet'. Porn is just another way of living life to it's fullest. I think we all know that censorship is ignorant. A kid wants Butchered At Birth? Why won't you let him get it? Because of the mutilated babies? Honestly, what are people afraid of? Jimmy knocking up a girl then killing her for the fetus's blood? Censorship I guess is just a way of people keeping 'unwanted' and 'undesirable' things out of their precious lives. What is wrong with the word Fuck? These are just questions beyond answers IMO. Please somebody, prove me wrong.

That fine line you (the OP) are talking about is where certain let-go's should happen. In my person eyes, 18 is legal, 21 should be fair game for anything. Sure, a parent can frown upon their child for looking at "art" that is pornographic at age 18, but it should be his legal right. This rule starts to vary as if the child still lives at home, and is under the guardians rule, he must obey it to continue living there.

I assume we are dealing with the censorship of music. Now you have to let your children be exposed to gore and violence, and maybe some pornographic material, because they will either find out behind your back (most cases), or grow up into a very deprived linear dimensional individual who thinks the world is all candy and no one does drugs.

My solution would be to slightly expose my children (when or if I have any) at a certain age to certain things. I wouldn't give a child a cannibal corpse CD at the age of 7, but I would not mind a 14 to 15 year old of mine seeing that, since I'm quite sure he would be capable of understanding fiction. At 18 I would expect the child to full well understand most of the world, if he doesn't, then he really needs some more exposure.



Also, ForNaught, I think personally one thing that parents might be over-restrictive on certain things is to make themselves look like a good parent among their peers. I mean, at the moment if I had a kid I would not really mind TOO much if he saw porn and was curious. I'd be afraid if told my child "Go look at porn so you don't fuss over it anymore" and he went to tell his friends "My dad let me look at porn!". This would probably tarnish your reputation hugely, so parents restrict it.
I mean, it is just the human body, 100,000 years ago there was no such thing as clothing.

I hope I stayed on topic/with the OP's wishes

Therefore, children of all ages should have free access to caveman porn. Yabba dabba doo!

Let's all watch the Cuntstones.

I don't think there should be a general limit on exactly how much children are able to access on the internet. I feel it should be done on a case-by-case basis. If a child (obviously not a 5 year old, probably older such as 12 or so) is mature enough to handle some mature content, then by all means allow them to.

Seconded.
I believe it is the parent's job to educate his child enough so he can't be easily influenced. I mean, if you do what Cjk10000 said, the child will probably have enough knowledge of how fucked up consecuences for certain things can be (like, say, commiting rape) and how they can affect others. If you did a good job with your kid, listening to Cannibal or Slayer won't push him into violence. And if not, it's the parent's fault, not the music's. Tons of people understand and enjoy the music without getting their minds screwed up.
Also, I don't know if it's relevant, but experience tells me that people who's lives have been tougher (in childhood, mostly), tend to be significantly smarter and resistant to influences and pain than people who always had everything served on a silver tray.
And for the last, let's not forget how music is misjudged sometimes. My sister thought Opeth was satanic until I showed her the lyrics...

I have a 3 1/2 year old son, and there is no way in hell that he's going to watch horror at a young age. It's bad enough that he knows what a Gene Simmons is and that he blows fire. He has listened to certain things metal, but I'd never let him listen to anything death/black especially at a very early age. IMO kids don't understand that angst, and I wouldn't want to scare him to death. Recently, I played him Slayer because I thought he might get a kick out of it based on him being on a sugar high at the time and he sat and listened to it, and I asked him if he thought the music was scary and he said yeah...I said bad scary...he said no...good scary.

At some point he'll want to do this that and the other thing. When he's ready really for horror and all the rest, and I think he's ready; there is everything in my library.

As far as porn is concerned, my dad bought me my first Playboy magazine when I was 10, so it all depends; but I will be talking to my son about it when he's ready.

I don't think the censorship thing at a certain point is good. It can become perverted if horded too much. You can't protect them from everything forever, but you can teach them the differences between right and wrong and where certain boundaries are. What is accepted in society and what you may think may be 2 different things, and to be aware of the difference.

Will you be letting your son make an account on Metal-Archives anytime soon? It definitely seems like you're going to raise your kid well, good job.

It feels weird (to me, at least) that there are actually parents on the forums. Kinda makes me wonder if my own mother frequents Metal forums when I'm not home...

I wish my parents had played me Slayer... this makes me wonder just how I found metal being in a slightly conservative family...

I wish my parents had played me Burzum.

You said it well. Especially how kids don't understand the angst. In that way censorship can be a good thing, if you keep it just there until they are mature enough to understand that "No, Chris Barnes doesn't really Cum Blood and isn't really a Necropedophile."

Who knows, could be But one day you may be 40, have a kid(s) and still listen to what you listen to.

The thing I realize is that you have to let them have their own likes and dislikes you can't clone them. You have to be their friend but give them boundaries and guidelines. I want him to have a good overall music history background period. Just about 3-4 months ago, he has been asking about my "heavy" or "loud" music I listen to. Besides KISS, I think the first real metal thing I played for him, he asked me about. I went recently to see Ozzy live (just for shits and giggles, I sat in the cheap seats) and the next day he wanted to hear what I saw, so I put on BLIZZARD OF OZ and he liked it and listened to the whole first side.

Boys especially seem to have an interest in electronics as well and he's been putting in DVDs and CDs himself into the players since he's been about 1. Over the weekend, I had the new remastered IRON MAIDEN LIVE AFTER DEATH DVD playing and after a few songs, he turned the TV off, ejected my DVD and actually put his finger in the hole of the CD and handed it back to me (and not putting his fingerprints all over the DVD). I was excited

I have a room off the side of my basement which is about 10x15 and it's my hangout room. It's got a shitload of vinyl and he knows how to work a turntable and put on an album...pretty cool to see. Anyway, lots of posters in there, basically it's a shrine to my childhood ala 1979. So there is KISS posters in there, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Floyd, and Sabbath up there, and he's getting the feel. He has an acoustic guitar and sings and plays alot, and he also has a Ludwig Jr. drumset I bought him that he plays a bit on. It's pretty cool to see him playing an acoustic guitar and putting on a plastic firehat singing the chorus to "FIREHOUSE".

But again, I would NEVER EVER play him something black metal or death metal not for a long time and no horror at all. I have friends that play NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET for their toddlers and I think that's bullshit.

When I was a kid growing up, I had no parental guidance and turned on crazy horror movies that were on regular TV, stayed up on weekends to watch shit like CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS, and freaked myself becoming a KISS fan at an early age, etc and when I saw the Exorcist at around 10, it took a long time to get "over" There's lots of time for THE EVIL DEAD and DEICIDE if you know what I mean.

Definitely. Plus let a kid be a kid. They'll be ready soon enough. And maybe he'll be reaching for something else instead but that's his choice, whatever he likes is cool with me.

When I grew up, there was no DEICIDE, there was the bands from 1979-1981 that I knew. Once Slayer came along, once the hardcore punk came along, and speed metal, it was an obvious progression. I want my son to understand the progression all across the board, not just with the metal genre but with all types of music. He listens to 50's rock and roll and he likes that a lot, but I also play him cheezy pop stuff from the 70's and he likes that, and also metal from my childhood and classic rock, etc.

I think once the kids get to be like 13, they are ready for the heavy stuff. Even 8-10 may be too young for death/black. I think even though the angst may be primitive and it may be relative, still there is something a bit more mature about the subgenres.

I believe in censorship. But censorship to violence isn't all that bad especially in video games. I mean I was playing Doom and Mortal Kombat at 4.

I wouldn't give a kid extreme metal simply because if he/she did like it, it would probably be a primitive sort of attraction and I'd want to get them to think about music. I'd be afraid they would see it as "heavy shit" and like Slipknot as much as Bolt Thrower because to them it's all coming from the same direction. Hell, I have friends who approach music this way; I'm hoping my kid develops good taste and doesn't go for the simple satisfication of something like Children of Bodom.

Hope that makes sense.

I'll start him out on some Nightingale.

I was not censored to a lot of things when I was younger. I do remember watching a movie with my parents many years ago that had a lot of sex scenes in it, but they let me watch it. My parents were quite relaxed in the sense of what they should subject me to, and as far as I'm socially aware, it has had no undesirable effects.

Children these days are growing up very fast, so trying to stop a 13-year-old boy from watching porn, when it's readily available on the Internet, is much more difficult than a parent indicates initially. They can do their best, but it all depends on the child as a person. What I mean is, when I was 13, I had no interest in sex, drugs, alcohol, metal (didn't even know what metal was back at that age). But there are other 13-year-olds that are growing up much faster and learning about the world in great deal more than a parent thinks (or wants).

Parents can try and censor explicit material, and I'm all for it as long as it isn't stupidly restrictive and leaves for room to breathe for the child to explore in his/her own time, but eventually the child will discover these things (sex, violence, etc.) and there isn't much the parent can do, except positive reinforcement of what is right and wrong.

This is an interesting point on a couple of levels. The idea that parents might be every bit as subject to peer pressure as their kids are wasn't something that I had even considered when I started this thread, but it seems such an obvious consideration now! Based on dinner-table conversations and such, I suspect that my own parents were VERY aware of who was allowing their spawn which freedoms. Indeed, the disapproval they often expressed was sufficient to cause me to view the situation in much the same way they did. This would have resulted in a form of self-censorship, at least until I had matured enough to stop taking their word as unshaekable law. A very nasty but simple way of doing things!

And as for the human body being natural thing-- well, I agree, as I'm sure most do, barring the very repressed. But taboo dies hard. The last few centuries, particularly the nineteenth, have changed the body from something that is simply yours, neither a cause for pride nor shame, to something to revere (I'm talking about civilisations like the Greco-Roman) and finally to somthing to be ashamed of, to cover up. If it's imperfect you must make it so! Cosmetics are as old as civilisation so perhaps that drive has always been there. But it's natural to attempt to prime one's children for life alone in the world, and this naturally entails a knowledge of society and especially what not to do. The consequence is that porn is often seen as a shameful thing. People moralise it any way they can--degradation of women being a particularly favoured one-- but ultimately I think it's nothing more than a question of taboos.

A point that several people have made is about the concept that the child's own level of maturity and understanding of the world should be key in the process. In other words, that they should be exposed to whatever they are ready for and can understand. This seems intuititively correct, but raises problems, too. For example, how does one decide when you kid is "ready"? You can't set an arbitrary age limit, as film censors attempt to do, because everyone matures differently, and this is particularly true of teens. And you can't let the kids themselves decide, because nearly all children consider themselves to be more grown-up than they actually are. I know I did. Maybe it would be best to try gradual exposure and gauge reactions, but it would be hard to be too careful in employing such a method. So any thoughts on this facet of things, anyone?

Your kid sounds cool, deathcorpse, and it's good to see such a healthy relationship between child and parent. I'm interested in how you stand on the porn issue, though (if you've thought about it)? I hadn't intended porn to be a driving focus of the thread but people seem to be interested in it, and your lack of a mention is conspicuous. Still too young for you to have considered it, perhaps?

Somebody mentioned video games, do we think they are more or less important to control than other media? I certainly amn't happy with kids playing games like GTA (even though I did it myself with the first one), mainly due to the skewed morality these games present. But the media's bastardisation of them seems like an undue knee-jerk reaction too. Any thoughts?

My opinion is that these questions cannot be answered in general. It is similar to attempting to decide the age at which it is appropriate to teach a person calculus. The question is ridiculous when posed this way because the appropriate answer depends hugely upon the characteristics of the individual. The best way to do it is to observe the child's responses to different stimuli and modify privileges based on them. For example, if a child watches a horror movie and has nightmares, then he should wait before he can watch them again. When the child shows no adverse reactions, that material is probably all right for him to experience. Some children are far more suggestible than others, so setting rigid guidelines is futile.

Sure, I don't see why it's hard to be too careful. An unsettling experience here or there isn't going to make a big difference in the end. Furthermore, it must be understood that the parents' degree of control over the child's exposure is highly limited, provided that the child leads a normal life by Western standards. The kid will quickly come to spend more time away from his parents than with them. The most important thing for a parent is to be decent. That is, to avoid negligent behaviors. It's not necessary to be parent of the year. The consensus amongst developmental psychologists today appears to be that the importance of parental behavior is overstated.

Well, sure. I'm not looking for or expecting quantitative answers to the question raised, but rather a discussion of the various possibilities.

I see you're advocating progressive exposure, which does seem like a fairly safe bet. My issues with it stem less from the possibility of traumatising the child, which seems unlikely provided that care is taken, but rather the decisions that must be made by the parent on the child's behalf. Do they really know what is best for the kid? Are they really entitled to make all the decisions? Ultimately they will, but should they?

Apologies for the short post, I'm currently in a hurry.

I think that if I have kids, I won't set any solid boundaries. Each person has an individual mind that matures in different ways at different rates. I'd cross bridges when I came to them, as it were.

I figure that the kid would hear me listening to metal of varying kinds from an early age. For most bands, I'd let him or her listen with me, if they wanted to. The more violent or morbid lyrics would be growled or shrieked, so the kid would likely not understand any of it. I don't think they'd be any more traumatized by it than they are by Cookie Monster, unless it was played really loud. My experience with kids leads me to think they'd probably not want to listen to death or black metal anyway. Just so long as I keep the lyric booklets out of reach, we're cool.

Of course, I'd be mindful of any clearly-audible bad language, because kids have a habit of parroting things they've heard and I wouldn't want my kid going around telling other children that Municipal Waste is going to fuck them up.

When it comes to porn, I really just think it's best to just let the kids go at their own pace. I'm sure that by the time he (or she for that matter) starts to get curious, he'll go looking for it on the internet. I think a "talk" about porn would only be awkward for both of us.

When the kid gets to the age when he starts to form his own tastes, I'll be fine with him buying and listening to anything he wants, wearing anything he wants, etc, within reason. I'm not going to let a 10-year-old buy a Cannibal Corpse album or anything. It's probably better he vent through some aggressive music than by getting himself into trouble.



You sound like a really cool dad.

Oh I think about it. All I know is what I grew up with and I will say this. Although it's more readily available via the internet, it was still readily available when I was growing up. For me, I went through puberty at a very young age...by 10 I was already understanding the differences between men and women if you know what I mean...and I knew what was going on with my lower body then. I also knew that certain movie/tv stars at the time (we are talking 1978) made me feel funny down there. I asked my dad who explained it all, and actually bought me Playboy magazine at 10. Although my parents were teenagers in the 50's they were pretty cool, but they did have certain boundaries and certain things were a bit in the closet, etc. Sometime after though probably around 11 or 12, I had friends that had HUSTLERS and PENTHOUSE, etc; and that is definitely porn. So although there was no internet, it was still around, especially in the late 70's and early 80's no doubt. I was watching porno movies at 15.

It's all relative though...they grow up fast...but what is the difference between girls going to school back in my day with tight jordache jeans and a cutoff Led Zep shirt versus what they wear now? Girls were having sex at 13 then too. It's all about when you are sexually ready and sure emotionally 13 year old kids are not ready but they are physically. If a girl has her period and a guy gets aroused, they are physically ready. How can you stop this from happening and them ruining their lives with getting pregos or worse, getting a disease? Again, it's just more exposed now due with the internet and TV. So, I saw EMANUELLE movies on Skinemax back then, what's the difference?

I personally think that the internet is for adults, not for kids. Parental control is important but how can you block it all out? All the craziness of myspace and child molestors that pose as kids etc? You have to talk to your kids and let them know what's up. Look, my son goes to daycare and he already knows how to use a computer, he knows how to point and click a mouse and spell his name on the keyboard. He also knows what YOUTUBE is because he watches kid videos on there.

Monitoring it for as long as you can is important, having good open communication with your kids is important, support them and be their friend but be there to guide them. Here is a for instance...my son never has put his hand on the stove OR put his fingers in a socket. Know why? Because I told him NOT TO and WHY NOT TO. I tell him, I don't want you to get hurt. You can do it but you will cry for a long time, and you don't want to get hurt do you? Maybe my son is smart and has good instinct, but he understands that. I think if you EXPLAIN things to your kids with an outcome of WHY you don't want them to do something...just not DONT DO IT OR ELSE I find there is a better outcome. Kids are smarter than you think they are. My son is like an elephant and remembers EVERYTHING. I can't put ANYTHING past him

About violence, we do not watch the news around him. For the most part, I am interested in the news but I read it on the internet at work, etc. We only turn on the news for weather updates. He doesn't need to know about Iraq and 911 and the rest at this age. Also, I'd never watch some violent movie around him, you as a parent have to have common sense to understand that these kids never saw this shit before and it's going to be impactful and mindblowing to them especially when they are very young. I mean, he's a boy; he wants to watch Spiderman and Batman and that sort of thing, but I'd never put on some gladiator movie, or war movie, or something with rape on it, etc; things of an adult nature. Furthermore, no horror either...no EXORCIST, etc. You have to ease them into reality...they are a kid don't rush it...they will know soon enough! The Munsters and The Addams Family enough horror and ok for a young kid under 5. He already talks about ghosts and monsters, and that isn't me pushing it on him. Also, we try not to let him watch anything cut up too fast with that bullshit ADD editing. Even watching shows like Spiderman and Batman, the commercials are crazy fast, I get dizzy from watching them myself!

Look, he must get it...we walk around together and he carries a large stuffed mouse (that is really a rat we just took off his teeth) and carries it by its tail and I'm chasing after him playing "monster" in the mall wearing a Slayer shirt. It's all normal to us. It must look a little strange to the average normal person, but maybe not. He's already a rock kid and that's just because of the enviornment he's in. My wife is an artist and I'm a musician. We have normal jobs but I work in the music industry in royalties, and she designs kitchens and bathrooms for multi-million dollar homes.

I kiss that kid every day and hug him and let him know I love him and am there to support him...and I don't want him EVER to forget that. I want him to know that he can talk to me about anything and to not be afraid to ask any question he wants.

Of course, he's going to get big and have his own friends, but I think in having a good relationship with him that he'll be able to be a good friend to someone else...and know the difference between being fake and real, and knowing when someone is taking advantage of him.

Thanks, and I agree with what you said about the whole venting thing. I guess parents forget about what they were like as a kid...I know I listened to SUICIDAL TENDENCIES and hardcore punk (circa 1983-1985) to blow off teen angst and it worked well. Actually I still do it. I put all my stress and frustration and angst on the music and eventually it mellows me out. I don't know if anyone else does that, but that's probably why I still listen to heavy shit.

It's IN YOU. That's why. My parents were 50's parents and back in the 70's there really wasn't much monitoring going on in my house with TV or music. I found CREATURE FEATURE, late night horror movies, King Kong and Godzilla movies, The Addams Family and The Munsters, KISS on The Paul Lynde Halloween Special, etc all on my own at a young age; before 10. I made my parents go see KISS with me in 1979 (my first ever concert). I bet though that people of my age (not that you may like him or not) like ROB ZOMBIE, SEBASTIAN BACH, and someone like (rest his soul) DIMEBAG DARRELL have similar stories.

I think after that concert though, they knew what they were "in for".

When he's old enough perhaps I'll bust it out if he wants to check it out. Probably what will happen is that he will hear something like COF from a friend and will want to check that out...and I'll then hand him my Burzum vinyl and tell him to "get to work"!

Actually I'll do him one better, and hand him the first 3 BATHORY records.

Assuming that in our greying world, the average parent would be nearing 30, why the fuck would you wanna be watching porn and risk your kid seeing something that he probably shouldn't at that age...I mean nobody deserves to be so sex-starved. I hold nothing against porn per se, though I don't watch it because I just plain don't enjoy it, but like deathcorpse says, a kid may not easily understand the hows and whys of it. You can explain violence and war and the like when he's all of say 6 or 7 but how about sex..that's tricky.

I for one would not listen to my Cannibal Corpse (not that I do much of the time as it is anyway ) and would not watch A-rated films if the kid is around. He'll get to know about it in due course and that time will probably be the right time for him too. Even with other things, the best policy is just do your own thing and not push it onto the kid...my parents didn't ask me to watch the 1992 Cricket World Cup or the Tennis Grand Slams in 93 or some other of my early years, I just watched the TV, unconsciously picked it up and got interested. Same with movies, music and everything else. I was never given the classic novels in illustrated form and specifically asked to read; yes, I got some as gifts from relatives, other than that, I was of my own mind. Needless to say, metal too just happened in my life.


The other, and trickier, question which doesn't seem to have so far got much attention on this thread is how do you insulate the kid from bad influences at school, neighbourhood, friend circle, etc. The answer is, you can't, so you don't. Out there in the jungle, the cub's gotta decide which grubs it will gobble. For me, there was bad company in school, in college, but I just made my own choices, which generally seem to have turned out alright. I was and still largely am introverted but not aloof and/or distrustful; I sought out my own friends and agreed to disagree with those of their choices I would not have made in my own life. If you're gullible, talkative AND also make friends easily, you are easy prey no matter how hard your parents try to 'protect' you. In fact, in that matter, protective tendencies all too often inspire misguided rebellion and sooner or later trouble.

I can forsee your son knowing almost every band listed on this site in due time.

It's no different than him knowing about rockabilly or anything else. If he comes home with some Jay-Z record someday, I'd quickly hand him off some RUNDMC and GRANDMASTER FLASH. And then I'd show him, you see this RAPPERS DELIGHT song...well; check this out (turns on Chic's Good Times).

But I will be interested in what he brings home I hope he will share what he likes with me. God knows he can reach for almost anything anyway in my collection, but hey if he busts out some new band I never heard of, nothing wrong with checking them out if he really digs them. Everyone has to have their "own" music.

You have to know where it came from, for me it's an important thing; the education you don't get in school, etc. That goes beyond music though.

Well, if they understand how a baby grows, they can eventually understand how it GOT there...but regardless I think exposing kids to any of this stuff that is really of at least an adolescent or adult nature is in some way child abuse. The only reason I can think that anyone would do these things is 1) irresponsibility 2) you're dumb and don't know any better OR 3) you want your kid to be exposed to what you were exposed to, but do an inventory of yourself and realize that may be in part why you are doing it in the first place.

To break habits and patterns you have to conciously make those changes within yourself. I stopped cursing around my son when he was born. It was hard. Here's an example...one of the kids he's friends with in daycare heard her dad get mad at her cats and said "fucking cats". Now the girl goes into school and says fuck and fucking and she's 4. Of course, kids are going to pick up things along the way, especially being around older kids, etc; but it all starts in the home. This girl would never be saying this if her dad didn't say it in front of her.

Same with horror, certain music, violence, sex, etc. It comes from home and needs to be monitored. Can't be a dumbass in front of your kids, be responsible all across the board.

It all depends on how mature the child is. A kid who has a pension for killing birds or burning cats alive should probably not be given added violent material until that is sorted out. A child who can listen to CC or Mayhem or whatever and enjoy it for the musical aspect and the artistic merits should be able to delve fully into the art.

As long as there is open communication for the parents to gauge how the child is reacting to what he experiences, there should be no need for censorship. Parents should be able to explain to their children and teach them right and wrong.

Most of the time if a kid is doing that, it's because of problems at home or some trauma that happened to him/her.

I don't think a child that is under 13 has any business listening to Mayhem or CC or anything like that. No kid that is 10 years old understands the musical aspect/artistic merit of an art form such as black/death or horror.

If I heard CC at 10 years old I would have nightmares. Why add fuel to the fire. When they are ready though, you'll know.

This I definitely agree with and can refute. My friend's sister got into bands like MayheM and Marduk and all this other Black/Death Metal at 11 or so (she's 13 now?) and she couldn't appreciate it as art. Instead she took it waaay too seriously, thought of herself as evil and deranged, started doing all this immoral shit (which I will refrain from speaking of) and pretty much fucked her preteen-years up.

Right. It's because it's more than growling and blastbeats and loud guitars. Once you all have kids, your views on all of this may change. But you have a good grasp on it already. I think anyone with common sense would. Do you think it's cool to freak your kids out like that? They don't need to be going to school with DEICIDE in their IPOD at 10. Sorry.

If my son comes to me at 11 or 12 and wants to listen to harder stuff, I'll give him Motorhead instead, AC/DC, Priest, classic Metallica etc. That sort of thing is enough. Once he graduates from that and gets over 13, then perhaps if he and his friends are all exploring other things, I'll gear him to the history and the right things when he's ready. Slayer, hardcore punk and what comes next and after; i.e. if he's skating etc.

If he came to me at 13 and said his friends were listening to extreme death stuff, I'd talk to him about it. If he wanted to know more about it, I'd tell him to start with this and that and work his way up. I really think it's a good idea to understand how this music came to be and what its components really are made up of. Minor Threat, Suicidal Tendencies, and Slayer are far less impactful IMO then Morbid Angel and Mayhem onward are. Letting your kid listen to extreme shit at 10 years old is about as bad as giving them a hit of acid.

I bought Scream Bloody Gore when I was 11, I see nothing wrong with it.

As this thread has said so far, and which I agree with you here... is that it depends on the child's maturity, rather then numerical age.
So I was beginning to wonder about the idea of nature versus nurture here, because children could be the same age and one would be more mature then the other in dealing with death metal (for example), while another kid would freak out/become messed up in the head potentially.
Could their maturity be based off of how the parents let them grow up, or is there a genetic part of their brain that decides their maturity?

What I'm trying to get at basically; is if the child's maturity depends on genetics, we could with science one day pinpoint the exact probable moment in time theoretically for a child to be mature enough to start listening to certain material or certain movies.
If it depends on how we grow up (through nurture) then one could manipulate how a child is raised and judge the appropriate age for a child to be allowed to start something of those magnitudes (death metal, pornographic material, stuff society deems wrong...etc).

Or it could be a combination of both

Good, so when you have kids; let them buy the most current extreme metal record if they want to. Maybe they will be 7 and out tr00 you?

I plan on it.

@Thorgrim: Play your kids some Atrophy.

We'll see how you feel though once you actually have a kid. I thought differently too at one time.

Yeah I suppose my mind can change. However I honestly see nothing wrong with it at all. It's about gauging their intellectual and emotional maturity. My parents obviously felt I could handle the material at that age, and they were right.