Family Friendly

To my elders,

I love kids. I do. I plan on having some, someday. But I f*cking hate things that are “family friendly.” Places that are designed for children, by all means, should be geared towards children. Public parks. Children’s libraries. Chuck E Cheese. And that is great for toddlers. Toddlers should be protected. They are not capable of understanding explanations and often not even basic safety rules. But this idea that we should clean up the world of adults, that we should protect kids from what makes up the other 80% of the world, not even that, that we should pretend it doesn’t exist, is stupid and annoying. Stupid because when these kids discover it, possibly earlier than we did thanks to the internet, they will need to deal with it. Annoying because I hate censoring myself just because I am craving McDonald’s fries.

I knew all your basic swear words by the time I finished first grade. I think it took me 4 years before I ever repeated one. I didn’t understand the sex jokes on early seasons of Friends but I watched it every week anyway. And maybe these things are why I had the mouth of a sailor when I was 15. And maybe not. Because I still had a 4.0.

I warn my friends that there are small children near by at the mall when I can feel some swearing or inappropriate story coming on. The friends who tell those types of stories, however, often could care less. So why do I actually hate places that are “Family Friendly?” Because they missrepresent the world. Its like watching Leave It to Beaver and thinking that it represented family life in the 1950s accurately. It is like then trying to reconsile Leave It to Beaver with Mad Men and The Feminine Mystic and The Man In The Grey Flannel Suit and remembering that our grandfathers killed people in WWII. Or may have killed people or would have killed people if they’d made it to Europe before the War ended. Tom Rath killed 19 people. Pete Campbell got a girl pregnant the night before his wedding. The version of the world that “family friendly” portrays, the world that 1950s Americana portrayed, does not exist. “Family friendly” is like Pleasantville. It is two-dimensional. It is without real personality or complexity or interests. Or maybe Pleasantville is just where I got the idea. But I’m sick of pretense. Truth is far more interesting. Truth in its grittiness, its uneasiness, its awkwardness, its heartbreak and honesty, its beauty and joy and silliness. Its louder and dirtier and more dangerous, as Toby Maguire put it. And I like it so much more than the “family friendly.” And one day, those kids will too.

-K