by Bradley Bodeker

Created on: January 26, 2007   Last Updated: May 06, 2007

From the time I was able to tie my shoes, I watched horror movies. I watched everything from the old black and white Boris Karloff movies to the blood soaked gore of the original "Dawn of the Dead" and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre". I've been a big fan of them ever since and I have my mother to thank for that. Mom, not thinking about the violence I was absorbing, but was always concerned when a sex scene played out and covered my eyes.

I wasn't a violent kid. I was pretty shy in my younger years and was more outgoing as I grew. I didn't fight much unless cornered or someone went after my baby sister. I was more of a diplomat.
I grew into an adult that scoffed at the parents who blamed violent media for children becoming violent themselves. It was my take that violence has always been part of media, whether in books, TV, radio, film, etc. Take the 3 Stooges who used to beat the crap out of each other everytime they got the chance. Popeye and Brutus pulpalating each other. The Bible speaks of incest, heinous sexual acts, and murder in the most inhumane ways known.
Now, I have two kids. Girls who are 6 and 10. I would never let them watch anything that I've watched when I was their age. In fact, we got rid of cable and they spend more time outside or reading books. I hardly let them see the TV news, not because I want to shelter them, I just want them to keep having those happy kid thoughts they should have. Their friends think that their Playstation games are baby-ish, because we don't let them play anything that involves killing. They play board games and card games mostly.
Then one day, as they were playing outside, a neighbor boy came over and grabbed my oldest around the neck. In his other hand he had some kind of sharp metal object and he cut her from one ear to the other. It was mostly just a scratch, but there is a scar on the right side of her face.The whole fiasco was a terrible thing for a parent to go through leave alone a child. It was even harder for me to explain to her why someone would even think of doing something like that. The kid told the cop that he was just playing around, and that he was re-enacting something he saw in a movie, so there you go.
It is still my opinion, that violence hasn't changed. It is more accessible for our kids, and it's talked about more openly than it was in the past. The world is a violent place, and like it or not, we as parents have to prepare our kids for it when they go out there. I try to be a realist, but I try also to even it out and show my kids that there are a lot of fun, non-violent things in the world to watch, do and read. I know the world may beat them up a little and they may see some shocking things when they get older; so I just let them know that they have a safe haven at home to come back to.

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