Comic Books

I'm not ready for this. We thought it would be fun to go the book store this morning to look at some books and let the older kids pick one out. We passed a stand full of comic books full of heroes fighting their enemies. My four-year old surprised me by saying, "I want a comic book." Not knowing what to say but knowing that I didn't want him reading those at this point, I used a trusty parental tactic, "Maybe when you're older." It seemed to work, though he kept talking about them until we got to the kids' section. There we pointed out a stand with some good books on it about cowboys, animals, planes, popular Disney characters, and other stories that teach good things. Somehow, our son found some Batman books in there and asked for one of those. My wife and I weren't sure what to say. The Batman villains aren't just bad, they're pretty evil. Not only that, there are guns, girls in skimpy clothes, etc. Not a lot of good message teaching there. One of them was all right, I guess. It didn't have any shooting or immodesty, etc. It was more about Batman's clever use of tools to find and capture Joker. I was pretty reluctant and offered reasons for not wanting to buy it, but our son was clever enough to have an explanation for everything, "There aren't any guns in this one," "I'm not scared of these bad guys," etc. My take-away from this experience is that we need to know where our line is and make it clear to our son before-hand. The bottom line is that I don't think it's okay to be entertained by things we believe are wrong. I think it is simple enough to say we will not get books with swearing, killing or guns, immodest women, or senseless violence. I hope so anyway.