Bringing Up a Child in a House of Horrors

When I taught fourth grade, I had a bookshelf full of art books in my classroom. Classic art, poster art, graffiti art, comic book art, you name it. The kids loved looking at them, and one day I noticed a group of boys who were very (very!) engrossed in a thick book entitled something along the lines of Art, A to Z. They seemed to be really (really!) enjoying it.

(I'm sure you can see where this is headed.)

I casually walked over to their group. "What're you looking at?" I asked.

One of the boys, who we'll call Jimmy (yes, THAT Jimmy, the one who flipped off a friend, and when I asked him to go to the safe seat, yelled, "Why? What the hell did I do?") was snickering.

Jimmy: Ms. Bailey, this book is inappropriate.

Me: Why is that?

Jimmy: Because look, it has boobs.

Me: Hmmm. Yes, I see that. And...?

Jimmy: That's inappropriate.

Me: Why?

Jimmy: Because these ladies are naked!

Me: Those are classical paintings by great artists.

Jimmy: But they're naked!

Me: Are they doing anything inappropriate?

Jimmy: No, but they're NAKED!

Me: Well, if it bothers you, maybe you should look at an art book that doesn't have nudes.

Jimmy: No, that's okay.

I spent the next week or so jumping every time the phone rang, waiting for that infuriated parent to demand to know why I was allowing my students to look at porn, waiting for the principal to call me in and fire my ass.

Maybe I'm completely off-base, but I detest the idea of sheltering children from art. And that's why I had to have a conversation with Ruby that I hadn't planned on having for a loooong time.

Ruby: Hey, mom! Is this lady dead?

She was looking at a Frida Kahlo book. Specifically, she was looking at this painting:

Okay, so maybe I should re-think my position on censorship, at least until Ruby's a little older. Or maybe not. I don't know, I really don't. 

Me: No, she's not dead. It looks like she's having a baby.

Ruby: It's coming out of her vagina.

Me: Yes, that's how most babies are born. That's how you were born.

Ruby: There's blood.

Me: Yes, there's a lot of blood when babies are born. 

Ruby: Is the baby dead?

Me: No, the baby's fine. Once it's all the way out, it will open its eyes and start crying. Here, let's look at this painting instead. It's one of my favorite Frida Kahlo paintings:

I'M KIDDING!! Please don't call CPS.

No, what I did was, I casually diverted her attention to another book, Pulp Art, containing super colorful and mostly-appropriate pulp fiction artwork. Because that's what was close at hand.

Later, I went through the books on the lower shelves and removed the one of crime scene photos from Paris in the early 20th century and the Mafia Encyclopedia, both of which are exactly as gruesome as you might imagine.

But then I started thinking, jeezers, what else is in this house that might potentially traumatize a kid?

I walked around the house wearing a kid's eye, and...well, I found a few things that may or may not qualify.

First thing when you walk into our house, you're greeted by two of Gerardo's paintings in the stairwell:

The walls in the dining room are rife with art, including one of the first collages I did (Bad Dream, ca. 2005); Gerardo's Sin Brazos; the sweet-ass painting my niece Mackenzie made me for my birthday, inspired by Edward Gorey; and the terrifying Golden Snitch Gerardo's son Leo made out of feathers.

Then, you've got the nature shelf, with an alligator, a toad, a turtle, a shark in a jar I found at Family Thrift years ago, and some skulls, including monkey and mouse. On the piano is my limited-edition booklet from Mark Ryden's Blood Show, with beautiful, gruesome paintings. 

We don't want our kids to be afraid. Especially our little kids, whose fear can result in many, many nights' lost sleep, not to mention having to make up elaborate lies on the fly about how mummies detest music and won't go into a room where it's playing, so listen to your CD and go to sleep. Or how ghosts won't go into a house where there are dogs, because dogs have a frequency in their bark that turns ghosts into dust. And with THREE DOGS in the house, how could a ghost possibly be in your room, go to sleep.

The thing is, and I'm no expert here, but we're all born with fear. It helps us survive. And we manufacture a lot of that fear. In fact, we sort of love being terrified, which is why zombies have found their way to mainstream TV and four-year-olds pretend to have tea with them.

We're all "traumatized" during childhood by something or another, and it comes from whence it will come. One of my favorite shows to watch as a kid was the very tame, kid-friendly Bewitched, but my most horrifying nightmare came from that show, in which a ball of light followed me down the stairs, then turned into my sister's face, grimacing menacingly. Which she proceeded to actually do late at night, in the moonlight, after I told her about the dream. Which is probably why I still remember the dream so vividly.

So I think the paintings, the chicken feet, and the shark in a jar can stay. I will censor what Ruby sees through what my mother calls "skillful neglect." The skill is deciding what really does need to be restricted. (Like crime scene photos.) The neglect is taking chances that in living with us, Ruby will probably encounter some things that bring up a whole slew of interesting questions, which I'll do my best to answer as simply and as honestly as is appropriate.

Are we raising a traumatized serial killer? My bet is no. Are we raising up a little freak? Probably, but that's to be expected, I guess.

Case in point: While the other little kids at preschool used autumn colors to paint to the prompt "autumn leaves," Ruby came up with this: