What are we exposing our children to?

The other day one of my Facebook friends was asking if a certain movie was “appropriate” for her 13 year old boys.  That question alone was certainly valid.

What drove me crazy, though, was a comment she made to that post — that she was OK with her kids watching violence and hearing foul language, but she wasn’t OK with them seeing “sexual situations”.

I didn’t feel like starting a discussion via Facebook comments, so I didn’t comment there.  But I’ve been pondering what kind of logic there was behind her thinking.  Why is violence OK  but a sexual situation (even with or without nudity) not OK?  Does she believe that her children watching violence and hearing foul language won’t have any impact on them, but somehow sex is going to turn them into some kind of monster?

With the increased violence that is occurring everywhere – from the Middle East to elementary schools around the country – how is exposing 13 year old boys to make-believe violence OK?

Personally I do believe it’s OK for them to see movies with violence in them, just be sure that they understand the difference between what’s occurring on-screen and in real life.  But the same thing holds true for sexual situations as well!

If your children are 13 and you have not had the “birds and bees” talk with them yet you are far behind the parenting curve.  Children at that age should already have had the sex talk with their parents.  And just like with violence, understand that there is a HUGE difference between what happens on-screen and real life.

I’m going to leave the comments available for this post and would like to see what other parents think about this.