-- Michael Huggins

You know, I agree with Charles Taylor, but the hectoring tone of his essay makes me hear it as less of a call for freedom of expression than simply another shot in the ongoing war between parents and those without children. As a father who endeavors to raise his kids in a spirit of openness and honesty and free of pernicious illusions, I submit that Taylor would be awfully surprised, were he a parent, to discover what seemingly innocuous tasks can come to feel like Herculean obstacles. It's a shame that Taylor's rhetoric makes an important and sympathetic argument seem to boil down to crankiness over the way we parents are ruining popular culture for the uniformly liberated and open-minded mass of childless adults out there.

-- Chris Green

Taylor's article was a breath of fresh air in the current climate, in which both parties seem eager for censorship. I would add a couple of things. One, the problem of overprotection of children seems broader than just the media. Why, for example, should everybody get stuck with back seat windows that only roll down a few inches? Aren't child locks sufficient?

Second, I've often wondered if our attitudes about sex and childhood make sexual abuse a worse experience for young victims. The fact that we are inundated with the message that sex is the worst thing a child can come into contact with, even by seeing it in the media -- that sexuality is to childhood what dry land is to a fish -- must make coming to grips with sexual abuse, even into adulthood, all the more difficult for victims. It seems to me that the anti-sex view reinforces, and perhaps is even solely responsible for, many victims' feeling that they have done something wrong or are permanently tainted.

-- Erich Schulte

I've long been alarmed at the increasing effort by well-meaning censors to reduce absolutely everything to a level appropriate for a 6-year-old. I don't want my ability to read and watch what I want to be constrained by anybody who thinks they know better than I do. When I was growing up in the '60s and '70s, my parents permitted me and my sisters to read anything we wanted to. They were there to offer unthreatening explanations of the stuff we couldn't understand, like sex or religion. We were permitted to watch scary movies (with the warning that they might cause nightmares later). We all sang and danced along to Mom and Dad's record collection, including such profane gems as the Rolling Stones' "Star Star" (though we knew better than to sing that one for Grandma or teacher). We may even have caught a glimpse or two of Daddy's Playboy magazine. Our neighbors' kids were carefully restricted in their reading (I remember one family that wasn't even allowed to read "Mad" magazine!) and moviegoing. Their parents figured me and my sisters, free as we were, were all going to hell in a handbasket. We were the only family on the block who never had a teen pregnancy or arrest.

-- L. Andersen

I saw a lot of "blaxploitation" movies in the movie theaters when I was a kid. Those movies were full of nudity and were somewhat sexually explicit. The characters used language that I was not allowed to use at home.

I saw "Coffy," one of Pam Grier's movies, recently. As I was sitting in the movie theater, I thought to myself: "I can't believe that my parents allowed me and my brothers to see this stuff!" But that thought was rooted in today's mind-set that children need to be "protected" from certain visual images. My parents did not see those blaxploitation movies, and I don't know whether, if they had known all that was being shown on the screen, they would have allowed me to go to the movie theater to see it. But I am glad they did!

Those blaxploitation movies were immensely popular. We enjoyed them. And after it was over, well, we went back to playing, homework, reading, daydreaming and whatever other harmless things kids do.

I am glad that my parents did not get in the way of my seeing those films. They did not hurt me.

I do think, however, that because so much entertainment is available now, parents should not allow their children to partake in so much of it. I don't think that it is the violence and the sex that parents should be worried about, but rather the amount of time that children spend absorbing them. There is something wrong with spending five, six, seven or more hours each and every day in front of a television, on the computer surfing the Internet or playing video games.

-- R. Robinson

Thank you, Charles Taylor, for saying what needs to be heard through the static of the for-the-children crowd. As a father of twin 3-year-olds, I feel more strongly than ever that the delusion of innocent childhood is an extraordinarily dangerous development in public policy. The lengths otherwise reasonable people -- everywhere on the political spectrum -- will go in the name of the young is frightening. My children are not my pets nor my possessions. They are adults in the making, and I have every intention of letting them grow up to be thinking people with healthy doses of skepticism, humor and open-mindedness. It is my fervent hope that the society they spend 50-70 (or more) years in as adults is as tolerant. To the morality police: Stay the f--- away from my kids!

-- Tony Del Bono

Thank you for this articulate description of exactly how I have chosen to raise my four children, ages 15 to 23. Never have I denied any information from any source to my children, for how can they become decision-making adults without as much knowledge as possible? Most people regard me as nearly a child abuser for this practice, but in fact all my children are thoughtful, responsible and self-reflective individuals. I provided (also without restriction) my own opinions and criticisms on everything they saw, heard or read. My children can pronounce, nearly word for word, my opinion on casual sex, violence and spiritual matters.

Instead of restricting their access to information, I supplement the information with critical analysis and encourage them to do likewise. I insist they understand the results of violence and the place sex will have in their lives. I gave them a religious education knowing that they may someday reject it, but I want them to know what they are rejecting.

With movies, books, music, television and the Internet so available and full of information, the trick is to teach a measured outlook to our children that allows them to form a diversity of opinions and have the intelligence to accept the choices of others.

-- D. Witter

Cheers to Charles Taylor for pointing out things most of us would never bother to question. It is wonderful to read someone finally take adults to task over the "it's best for the children" argument.

Looking back on my childhood, I realize it wasn't the Christian Coalition or the MPAA or some right-wing group that shaped my values, but rather my parents. My parents actually took the time to teach me right from wrong. I never shot up a school, or dropped an anvil on my siblings' heads, or got a girl pregnant. I was taught to be responsible, and to understand that if I make a mistake, I must accept it as a part of life and try to learn from it.

Children today who are shielded from the "horrors of the real world" will only end up as clueless people who have no concept of how things really are. I am surprised to have met so many people in my 26 years who seem to have never been exposed to other cultures or other ways of thinking.

The narrow-mindedness that is the result of this cocoon of silence that we wrap our children in only hurts us more as we, as a nation and a society, become more and more integrated into the global community.

-- Daniel Gracia

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"