Tuesday 3 April 2007

"Cosmopolitan" - Childrens Edition.

AsslamuAlaikum

My step children are down for the holidays mashaAllah. So I took them to the local library on Monday. The eldest Aisha, is 9. She came up to me with a look of absolute shock on her face. "Aunty," she said, "You won't believe this book, it's soooo rude!!!" Although they arn't being brought up as muslims, (their mum is christian) she realised that this book was very wrong.

You know the thing is when we take our children to the library we just let them roam around looking for some books they'd like. You don't expect them to see anything to such a high level of indecency.

The book was called, 'What mum didn't tell me...' And it was in the young children section, key stage 1!

Among some of the things in the book were the following pages,

'Mum didn't tell me....
....Why I have a belly button, and how it got there...

Then it had a cartoon picture of a woman with no clothes on in labour.

Mum didn't tell me....
.....why mum and dad sometimes have the bedroom door locked...

(I won't tell you what the picture was on this page. SubhanAllah)

Mum didn't tell me...
...Why grown ups spend so long in the toilet....

This picture was of a man with his uncovered back showing sitting on the toilet, reading a magazine.

I wasn't sure what to do about it, and still am unsure.

"I don't want to put it back," my stepdaughter told me, "a young child may see it."

We left it in the adult section.
.

2 comments:

Saabirah said...

Urgh, I'm shocked. That's disgusting. Why is it so wrong for kids to retain a bit of their innocence and find out about sexuality naturally, over time and so what if sex is a bit of a stigma to talk about!? In fact it should, not only in children but adults too. We shouldn't discuss it so flippantly like it's just another topic.

Anyway, rant over, I hope Allah guides those kids to Islam, I like them. And I'm glad to know they have morals despite not being "muslims".

Anonymous said...

I saw that book in our local library, but alhamdulillah, my kids didn't see it. I stuffed it behind a stack of other books!