Parenting the Fannish Child
May. 2nd, 2013 08:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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DISCLAIMER: This essay is highly subjective, reflects my own experience, and is in no way intended to suggest a One True Approach to either parenting or fandom.
Before I talk a little bit about how my husband Josh and I have chosen to parent our little fanlet, I want to take a quick detour into my own fannish childhood. I grew up in the pre-internet era watching Star Wars on LaserDisc. I learned to type on an electric typewriter, and I didn’t have an email address until I was in college. And yet, I had an extremely rich fannish life as a kid. My parents were sci-fi and fantasy lovers (and readers in general, Mom especially), so I never lacked access to source material to play with. Some of my earliest fannish memories include pretending to be Princess Leia, writing and performing a Star Trek episode in which my brother and I played all the characters (We wore yarn necklaces with the character names strung on them and flipped to the appropriate name when we changed characters; I made my brother play Geordi and Deanna. I wanted to be Worf and Picard. LOL), and participating in a Star Trek fan club my parents belonged to. This club was mainly a venue for eating and re-watching episodes, but lots of the members did cosplay, and we went to at least one convention as a group where I met Walter Koenig (who was a doll).
I bring up my own fannish childhood for a couple reasons. First, I think that fannishness is often a natural play choice for children. I’ve talked to many people, inside and outside internet-based fandom, who have stories of pretending to be favorite characters from books or TV shows on the playground or covering their walls with posters of favorite celebrities. Second, I think what is significant about my experience and what has contributed a great deal to my participation in online fandom as an adult is that my parents actively encouraged my fannish behavior. We lived in a very rural area, and the only library I could access was the tiny one at school. If my parents hadn’t already owned so many books and been able to spend money on more, my reading experiences would have been severely curtailed. They were also able to take us to movies, spend money to attend sci-fi conventions, and travel to participate in fan club events. My mom even subscribed to a Star Trek magazine, and I exchanged letters with this guy who had advertised for a pen-pal in the classifieds section at the back. I’m sure he was thrilled to correspond with a nine year old. LOL
Although her environment has definitely cultivated her fannishness (just as mine did), my daughter Emma seems like a born fan, engaging in a variety of fannish activities of her own volition and with no prompting from me. One of her favorite games to play with her BFF in early elementary school was Jedi Mom. As Emma explained to me: “We’re Jedis, and we’re moms. We kill the droids, and then we feed the babies.” She loves to draw, and she’s spent countless hours drawing scenes and characters from her favorite books and TV shows—endless incarnations of the Enterprise, Captain Janeway giving Seven a single rose (my baby, she gets the subtext!!), and reproductions of pages from the Inuyasha manga. Well, see for yourself. (These are all from about a year ago.)
She’s written several completely adorable pieces of fanfiction—one that pits a sassy Captain Kirk against some angry Klingons and another SGA/Inuyasha fusion in which Kagome and the gang must rid feudal Japan from the Wraith. The posters on her wall include “Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Star Trek” and the centerfold from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Her shelves are lined with Lord of the Rings pez dispensers, Avengers action figures, and figurines from DS9. Emma is, in short, our very own wee little nerdling. Up until this point, though, her fannish engagement has been of the kind that could have occurred pre-internet. With the exception of watching a few fanvids on youtube with me, her fannish activity has been confined to media consumption and the creation of fanworks in a vacuum. Now that she’s getting older (she’s 10.5), Josh and I have a lot of decisions to make about her participation in fandom and her use of the internet in general. What follows is a list of some of the issues I see looming ahead, what we’ve done so far, and what we’re still struggling to figure out.
What media to allow her to consume
At times, the lines we draw seem pretty arbitrary, even to me. We let her watch Inuyasha at ten (although I was afraid in the beginning that it would scare her; it didn’t), but I’m not letting her watch Fullmetal Alchemist for a loooooong time. In general, we don’t let her watch horror, very graphic violence, storylines that depict child abuse or the mistreatment of children (Oh, Kohaku, I had totally forgotten how fucked up your storyline is before we got to that arc *sigh*), and overtly sexual situations. In terms of books, Emma blew the top off the reading placement test in the second grade. She could read just about anything in our house (although her understanding of much of it would be understandably limited given her age and cultural capital), and I don’t have a secret bookshelf where I hide all the adult material. To date, she hasn’t really expressed any interest in reading anything we think is too grown up for her, so I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. And we will. LOL
Not hiding my identity as a fan from her
Emma knows that I write stories about the TV shows we watch together (and some that she’s not allowed to watch yet). She knows I have an LJ and a DW account and that I make posts about my life and about what I read and watch there. I have shown her some fanvids and some fanart of the media she enjoys. She also knows that some of the material I write is not appropriate for children to read. I haven’t kept fandom a secret from her, but I haven’t invited her to join me there yet.
Only offering organized fandom to her as she expresses interest in participating
I don’t want to jump the gun here. Right now, the only online activities Emma has expressed interest in are watching videos on youtube and playing Sushi Cat LOL, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. As she does begin expressing interest in aspects of organized fandom, I will gradually introduce her to them as I feel appropriate.
Introducing general online safety practices
When Emma does express interest in developing an online presence, I intend to keep the computer in the living room so that there’s some level of chaperonage to her internet use. She will not get a cell phone until she’s driving, so she won’t be holed up in her room in the middle of the night surfing the web. I intend to stress to her the importance of not revealing certain kinds of personal information on the internet and all that jazz. I could go on here, but we’ve all read articles about teaching kids to be safe online, and I don’t think I have anything new to say about that.
One thing that’s a bit different than what the average parent may tell her kid about internet safety has to do with the creation of a fannish persona, an identity that Emma can inhabit online but that isn’t necessarily connected to her real life identity. (I know this is a pretty grown up concept, but I don’t anticipate Emma wanting to actively participate in organized fandom for a good long while; I could be wrong, though, and if I am, this might be a difficult concept to get across.) I didn’t get into fandom until I was an adult, but even so the importance of separating my real life and fannish identities didn’t occur to me at all, and I didn’t realize how much I would come to regret not doing a better job of protecting myself. I shudder sometimes to think of the potential damage that Emma could do in those regards if she enters fandom ten or fifteen years earlier than I did!
Other differences will include lessons on fannish etiquette, avoiding newbie fan mistakes, and wank-proofing herself as much as possible.
How much of my fannish self do I reveal?
By the time Emma joins me in fandom, I’ll have amassed well over a decade of journal posts about my personal life and my beliefs as well as a body of writing that includes sexually explicit material and recs of fanworks that feature all sorts of sexual kinks as well as violence and other material she may find disturbing. I don’t anticipate locking down my journal to keep parts of it secret from her, so I imagine some frank conversations (or else OMG!MOM embarrassment) will ensue. I worry (as I imagine every parent has throughout history) that as she gets to know me better, Emma will be disappointed by what she learns, but I also hope that getting to know the mom behind the curtain will help us to become closer. I also will understand if she doesn’t want to associate with me openly in fandom; I get that commenting on mom’s porn could be kinda weird for a kid. LOL
And here’s the part where I just throw up my hands and go IDK
Do I just set her free into the wilds of fandom after educating her (coupled with periodic reinforcement and debriefing on what she might find there)? Or do I first find and vet stuff for her to read without encouraging her to search on her own? Do I offer to beta her fic and promote it on my journal, or is that way too helicoptery? Once we get to the part where she’s actually reading and posting stuff, I don’t know exactly how that’s going to work. I suspect I’ll have a much better idea when it happens than I do right now imagining a hypothetical future.
I’m not overly concerned about Emma’s exposure to sexually explicit material as a teen. I was reading graphic sex scenes in romance novels pretty much at the age she is now, and I don’t feel particularly damaged by the experience. LOL I am concerned about things like her encountering trolls on anon memes or being upset by some of the scenarios she might encounter in fic and not knowing how to process the complicated issues we often write about.
So, what do you guys think? Comments, questions, suggestions, and personal experience all welcome. I would particularly like to hear from parents who are already dealing with these issues or preparing to deal with them as we are and also from fans whose parents took an active role in shaping their fannish engagement (or on the flipside fans who had no familial involvement in their fannish development). I think I’m going to need all the help I can get! LOL
month_of_meta / month_of_meta.DISCLAIMER: This essay is highly subjective, reflects my own experience, and is in no way intended to suggest a One True Approach to either parenting or fandom.
Before I talk a little bit about how my husband Josh and I have chosen to parent our little fanlet, I want to take a quick detour into my own fannish childhood. I grew up in the pre-internet era watching Star Wars on LaserDisc. I learned to type on an electric typewriter, and I didn’t have an email address until I was in college. And yet, I had an extremely rich fannish life as a kid. My parents were sci-fi and fantasy lovers (and readers in general, Mom especially), so I never lacked access to source material to play with. Some of my earliest fannish memories include pretending to be Princess Leia, writing and performing a Star Trek episode in which my brother and I played all the characters (We wore yarn necklaces with the character names strung on them and flipped to the appropriate name when we changed characters; I made my brother play Geordi and Deanna. I wanted to be Worf and Picard. LOL), and participating in a Star Trek fan club my parents belonged to. This club was mainly a venue for eating and re-watching episodes, but lots of the members did cosplay, and we went to at least one convention as a group where I met Walter Koenig (who was a doll).
I bring up my own fannish childhood for a couple reasons. First, I think that fannishness is often a natural play choice for children. I’ve talked to many people, inside and outside internet-based fandom, who have stories of pretending to be favorite characters from books or TV shows on the playground or covering their walls with posters of favorite celebrities. Second, I think what is significant about my experience and what has contributed a great deal to my participation in online fandom as an adult is that my parents actively encouraged my fannish behavior. We lived in a very rural area, and the only library I could access was the tiny one at school. If my parents hadn’t already owned so many books and been able to spend money on more, my reading experiences would have been severely curtailed. They were also able to take us to movies, spend money to attend sci-fi conventions, and travel to participate in fan club events. My mom even subscribed to a Star Trek magazine, and I exchanged letters with this guy who had advertised for a pen-pal in the classifieds section at the back. I’m sure he was thrilled to correspond with a nine year old. LOL
Although her environment has definitely cultivated her fannishness (just as mine did), my daughter Emma seems like a born fan, engaging in a variety of fannish activities of her own volition and with no prompting from me. One of her favorite games to play with her BFF in early elementary school was Jedi Mom. As Emma explained to me: “We’re Jedis, and we’re moms. We kill the droids, and then we feed the babies.” She loves to draw, and she’s spent countless hours drawing scenes and characters from her favorite books and TV shows—endless incarnations of the Enterprise, Captain Janeway giving Seven a single rose (my baby, she gets the subtext!!), and reproductions of pages from the Inuyasha manga. Well, see for yourself. (These are all from about a year ago.)
She’s written several completely adorable pieces of fanfiction—one that pits a sassy Captain Kirk against some angry Klingons and another SGA/Inuyasha fusion in which Kagome and the gang must rid feudal Japan from the Wraith. The posters on her wall include “Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Star Trek” and the centerfold from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Her shelves are lined with Lord of the Rings pez dispensers, Avengers action figures, and figurines from DS9. Emma is, in short, our very own wee little nerdling. Up until this point, though, her fannish engagement has been of the kind that could have occurred pre-internet. With the exception of watching a few fanvids on youtube with me, her fannish activity has been confined to media consumption and the creation of fanworks in a vacuum. Now that she’s getting older (she’s 10.5), Josh and I have a lot of decisions to make about her participation in fandom and her use of the internet in general. What follows is a list of some of the issues I see looming ahead, what we’ve done so far, and what we’re still struggling to figure out.
What media to allow her to consume
At times, the lines we draw seem pretty arbitrary, even to me. We let her watch Inuyasha at ten (although I was afraid in the beginning that it would scare her; it didn’t), but I’m not letting her watch Fullmetal Alchemist for a loooooong time. In general, we don’t let her watch horror, very graphic violence, storylines that depict child abuse or the mistreatment of children (Oh, Kohaku, I had totally forgotten how fucked up your storyline is before we got to that arc *sigh*), and overtly sexual situations. In terms of books, Emma blew the top off the reading placement test in the second grade. She could read just about anything in our house (although her understanding of much of it would be understandably limited given her age and cultural capital), and I don’t have a secret bookshelf where I hide all the adult material. To date, she hasn’t really expressed any interest in reading anything we think is too grown up for her, so I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. And we will. LOL
Not hiding my identity as a fan from her
Emma knows that I write stories about the TV shows we watch together (and some that she’s not allowed to watch yet). She knows I have an LJ and a DW account and that I make posts about my life and about what I read and watch there. I have shown her some fanvids and some fanart of the media she enjoys. She also knows that some of the material I write is not appropriate for children to read. I haven’t kept fandom a secret from her, but I haven’t invited her to join me there yet.
Only offering organized fandom to her as she expresses interest in participating
I don’t want to jump the gun here. Right now, the only online activities Emma has expressed interest in are watching videos on youtube and playing Sushi Cat LOL, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. As she does begin expressing interest in aspects of organized fandom, I will gradually introduce her to them as I feel appropriate.
Introducing general online safety practices
When Emma does express interest in developing an online presence, I intend to keep the computer in the living room so that there’s some level of chaperonage to her internet use. She will not get a cell phone until she’s driving, so she won’t be holed up in her room in the middle of the night surfing the web. I intend to stress to her the importance of not revealing certain kinds of personal information on the internet and all that jazz. I could go on here, but we’ve all read articles about teaching kids to be safe online, and I don’t think I have anything new to say about that.
One thing that’s a bit different than what the average parent may tell her kid about internet safety has to do with the creation of a fannish persona, an identity that Emma can inhabit online but that isn’t necessarily connected to her real life identity. (I know this is a pretty grown up concept, but I don’t anticipate Emma wanting to actively participate in organized fandom for a good long while; I could be wrong, though, and if I am, this might be a difficult concept to get across.) I didn’t get into fandom until I was an adult, but even so the importance of separating my real life and fannish identities didn’t occur to me at all, and I didn’t realize how much I would come to regret not doing a better job of protecting myself. I shudder sometimes to think of the potential damage that Emma could do in those regards if she enters fandom ten or fifteen years earlier than I did!
Other differences will include lessons on fannish etiquette, avoiding newbie fan mistakes, and wank-proofing herself as much as possible.
How much of my fannish self do I reveal?
By the time Emma joins me in fandom, I’ll have amassed well over a decade of journal posts about my personal life and my beliefs as well as a body of writing that includes sexually explicit material and recs of fanworks that feature all sorts of sexual kinks as well as violence and other material she may find disturbing. I don’t anticipate locking down my journal to keep parts of it secret from her, so I imagine some frank conversations (or else OMG!MOM embarrassment) will ensue. I worry (as I imagine every parent has throughout history) that as she gets to know me better, Emma will be disappointed by what she learns, but I also hope that getting to know the mom behind the curtain will help us to become closer. I also will understand if she doesn’t want to associate with me openly in fandom; I get that commenting on mom’s porn could be kinda weird for a kid. LOL
And here’s the part where I just throw up my hands and go IDK
Do I just set her free into the wilds of fandom after educating her (coupled with periodic reinforcement and debriefing on what she might find there)? Or do I first find and vet stuff for her to read without encouraging her to search on her own? Do I offer to beta her fic and promote it on my journal, or is that way too helicoptery? Once we get to the part where she’s actually reading and posting stuff, I don’t know exactly how that’s going to work. I suspect I’ll have a much better idea when it happens than I do right now imagining a hypothetical future.
I’m not overly concerned about Emma’s exposure to sexually explicit material as a teen. I was reading graphic sex scenes in romance novels pretty much at the age she is now, and I don’t feel particularly damaged by the experience. LOL I am concerned about things like her encountering trolls on anon memes or being upset by some of the scenarios she might encounter in fic and not knowing how to process the complicated issues we often write about.
So, what do you guys think? Comments, questions, suggestions, and personal experience all welcome. I would particularly like to hear from parents who are already dealing with these issues or preparing to deal with them as we are and also from fans whose parents took an active role in shaping their fannish engagement (or on the flipside fans who had no familial involvement in their fannish development). I think I’m going to need all the help I can get! LOL
