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My Husband Insists That It’s Fine for Our Girls to See Graphic Movies
Dear Care and Feeding,
My husband and I have been married for 16 years. He is a hardworking professional and we are raising two daughters (ages 7 and 10) who are smart and sweet. For the most part, he is a loving and thoughtful guy, but we keep hitting a wall when it comes to our kids and media. We have very different points of view on media consumption as a whole and, specifically, what’s appropriate for our kids to see. If I had it my way, we wouldn’t even have a TV in our living room; my husband, on the other hand, has to have the biggest TV with the most amazing sound bar, etc. While I err on the side of caution, he doesn’t see anything wrong with a little sex, violence, and gore. He claims, “it’s nothing.”
My kids claim otherwise. Whenever they see something (however brief) that disturbs them, they tell me about it. For instance, they saw one moment of a preview for a scary movie, and the images were enough to spook my younger daughter for weeks. Most recently, my older daughter saw an old Western where a group of men grab a woman from a wagon, tear her blouse, expose her breast, and throw her to the ground. My daughter told me—with my husband present—that what she had seen had bothered her and that she couldn’t get it out of her head. My husband said, “It was nothing, she didn’t see anything, I turned it off.” My daughter and I talked about how it was just a movie, etc., but that kind of talk rings hollow when the topic revolves around the very real issue of sexual violence, not a make-believe psychotic clown in a sewer.
When I brought this up to my husband privately, he accused our 10-year-old of being “calculating” and doing this to “get him in trouble.” Of course, this led to a fight and him sleeping downstairs. I want him to protect our girls from this kind of stuff for as long as possible, but when I say this to him, he gets enraged at the suggestion that he doesn’t “take care of” his kids. He thinks because he works hard and makes a good living, that’s sufficient. Am I overreacting or being overprotective (both of which he accuses me of)?
—Protective Mama
Dear Protective,
You are neither overreacting nor being overprotective: You’re right to shield your children from violent images (and yes, of course, sexual violence in particular). Your husband is dead wrong, and I can’t tell you why he is determined not to protect the kids from this kind of harmful imagery—especially since it sounds as if he isn’t just being careless or thoughtless, but seems to feel there’s a sort of principle to be upheld. Is it possible he’s oppositional? Rebellious? That this is a big You’re-Not-the-Boss-of-Me statement?
Whatever is going on with him, it doesn’t sound like talking to him about this in the way you have been is going to make a whit of difference (and if my guess is right, it will only make him dig in his heels). You will not be surprised that I am going to recommend marriage counseling—it seems pretty clear to me that this is a problem between the two of you, and that it may be the tip of the iceberg. But in the meantime, since he refuses to get the message that nothing inappropriate for them should be on the TV when they are in the room, keep them out of the room. I would actually make it a rule: no playing in the living room when Daddy’s home. Maybe he’ll get the message that way.
Your daughters will be fine playing elsewhere. I recognize that it may be a challenge for you, particularly if the living room is a central room in your house where “everything happens” and if your husband continues to insist that there must be a TV in that room (and an enormous one, to boot!). But please do not turn this into an escalation of the power struggle that already exists between you and your husband, a “why should my daughters not be able to play in my living room?” scenario. And you might want to make that appointment for counseling sooner rather than later, because I am pretty sure he’s not going to like this rule any more than you will, and his calling you overprotective sounds like a trigger for you.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/03/parent-thinks-graphic-r-rated-movies-ok-media.html
My husband and I have been married for 16 years. He is a hardworking professional and we are raising two daughters (ages 7 and 10) who are smart and sweet. For the most part, he is a loving and thoughtful guy, but we keep hitting a wall when it comes to our kids and media. We have very different points of view on media consumption as a whole and, specifically, what’s appropriate for our kids to see. If I had it my way, we wouldn’t even have a TV in our living room; my husband, on the other hand, has to have the biggest TV with the most amazing sound bar, etc. While I err on the side of caution, he doesn’t see anything wrong with a little sex, violence, and gore. He claims, “it’s nothing.”
My kids claim otherwise. Whenever they see something (however brief) that disturbs them, they tell me about it. For instance, they saw one moment of a preview for a scary movie, and the images were enough to spook my younger daughter for weeks. Most recently, my older daughter saw an old Western where a group of men grab a woman from a wagon, tear her blouse, expose her breast, and throw her to the ground. My daughter told me—with my husband present—that what she had seen had bothered her and that she couldn’t get it out of her head. My husband said, “It was nothing, she didn’t see anything, I turned it off.” My daughter and I talked about how it was just a movie, etc., but that kind of talk rings hollow when the topic revolves around the very real issue of sexual violence, not a make-believe psychotic clown in a sewer.
When I brought this up to my husband privately, he accused our 10-year-old of being “calculating” and doing this to “get him in trouble.” Of course, this led to a fight and him sleeping downstairs. I want him to protect our girls from this kind of stuff for as long as possible, but when I say this to him, he gets enraged at the suggestion that he doesn’t “take care of” his kids. He thinks because he works hard and makes a good living, that’s sufficient. Am I overreacting or being overprotective (both of which he accuses me of)?
—Protective Mama
Dear Protective,
You are neither overreacting nor being overprotective: You’re right to shield your children from violent images (and yes, of course, sexual violence in particular). Your husband is dead wrong, and I can’t tell you why he is determined not to protect the kids from this kind of harmful imagery—especially since it sounds as if he isn’t just being careless or thoughtless, but seems to feel there’s a sort of principle to be upheld. Is it possible he’s oppositional? Rebellious? That this is a big You’re-Not-the-Boss-of-Me statement?
Whatever is going on with him, it doesn’t sound like talking to him about this in the way you have been is going to make a whit of difference (and if my guess is right, it will only make him dig in his heels). You will not be surprised that I am going to recommend marriage counseling—it seems pretty clear to me that this is a problem between the two of you, and that it may be the tip of the iceberg. But in the meantime, since he refuses to get the message that nothing inappropriate for them should be on the TV when they are in the room, keep them out of the room. I would actually make it a rule: no playing in the living room when Daddy’s home. Maybe he’ll get the message that way.
Your daughters will be fine playing elsewhere. I recognize that it may be a challenge for you, particularly if the living room is a central room in your house where “everything happens” and if your husband continues to insist that there must be a TV in that room (and an enormous one, to boot!). But please do not turn this into an escalation of the power struggle that already exists between you and your husband, a “why should my daughters not be able to play in my living room?” scenario. And you might want to make that appointment for counseling sooner rather than later, because I am pretty sure he’s not going to like this rule any more than you will, and his calling you overprotective sounds like a trigger for you.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/03/parent-thinks-graphic-r-rated-movies-ok-media.html