They also assume we write children's books 🫠 "this was not appropriate for my 12-year-old" it wasn't meant for your 12-year-old 🤷‍♀️ - ThreadSky

haileypiperfights.bsky.social • 92 days ago

They also assume we write children's books 🫠

"this was not appropriate for my 12-year-old"

it wasn't meant for your 12-year-old 🤷‍♀️

Reposted from Krista D. Ball is a shitposting account not a political account.

I fought in the 2015 reddit wars to get male readers to see female writers as more than only romance and childrens authors, only to arrive on the doorstep of 2025 where female readers assume all female writers only write romance and send unhinged emails about no HEA in non-romance genre book 💀

Comments

ahintofoctober.bsky.social•92 days ago

A 12-year-old should be learning how to self-manage what they read/watch/play. If they're reading something they aren't ready for, they can close it and find another book.

The author isn't lurking in the hall to give a blessing to read or not to read. That would be weird.

haileypiperfights.bsky.social•92 days ago

Kids are pretty good at saying "enough" on this stuff. If something was too much for me, I would stop reading, turn it off, etc.

Parents have a much harder time. Usually this is chalked up to protectiveness, but today I'm wondering if it's just hitting (and hurting) that their kid is growing up.

ahintofoctober.bsky.social•92 days ago

My daughter's 14. She was never much fazed by horror, but discovered a few years ago watching Train to Busan that zombie swarming scares her. So she turned it off and is careful about zombie movies.

But I get the other side - I have to resist the urge to make comments about clothes sometimes. 🤣

katarzynaokelo.bsky.social•92 days ago

I am pretty sure at this age I was reading Sapkowski's "The witcher" series and I am still alive and even well :D.

artofravend.bsky.social•92 days ago

If I'm writing at a bar, a man will attempt to flirt & ask "what you writing... sci-fi... romance? *suggestive eyebrows*"

Me:"extreme horror."

It makes them uncomfortable & walk away. I wanna be like "Wait, sir! Let me read the part about a boothyhole stretched to the circumference of a CD-Rom!"

artofravend.bsky.social•92 days ago

Why does everyone assume we all write romance. I am absolute ass at romance!

haileypiperfights.bsky.social•92 days ago

At least he leaves!

artofravend.bsky.social•92 days ago

Yup. I am glad telling men what I write turns them away (so far) when I just wanna have a drink and write in peace.

dannythechurch.bsky.social•92 days ago

"My 9 year old read your book RAMPAGE OF THE ANAL GUTFUCKERS and is still traumatised!"

haileypiperfights.bsky.social•92 days ago

This sounds like the people who let their kindergartners watch Princess Mononoke 🫠

dannythechurch.bsky.social•92 days ago

I was reading Shaun Hutson at 11 - killer slugs, abortions that rose from the grave... and I turned out fine *twitches*

Weirdly, the only time my parents ever censored my reading was when I picked up a copy of The Exorcist at a church jumble sale(!) It very quickly disappeared into thin air...

haileypiperfights.bsky.social•92 days ago

Which is hilarious because that book is more sad than anything

highsorcerer.bsky.social•92 days ago

"Oh a movie about a princess? How bad could it be? After that we can watch Watership Down. It's about bunnies."

haileypiperfights.bsky.social•92 days ago

My mom did rent us Watership Down when I was 7.

I turned it off halfway through 😂

ajballou.bsky.social•92 days ago

Who are these people? My parents had no idea what I was reading when I was 12. (It was definitely not “appropriate“)

But for real, the majority of sci/fi and mystery and fantasy I come across is written by women. Wild to me that doesn’t click with people.

flyfeline.bsky.social•54 days ago

Halfway through a Rumfitt book before I realize it may not be appropriate for children

haileypiperfights.bsky.social•54 days ago

Oh god 🫠

basicandbizarre.bsky.social•92 days ago

Absolutely BIZARRE stance for people to take when women have been writing adult fantasy and science fiction novels since basically forever.

rhysshelmerdine.bsky.social•92 days ago

If you’re just looking in mainstream bookshops it can almost seem like that isn’t the case unfortunately. I looked in countless bookstores for Sci-Fi that wasn’t written by white men. When I searched at indies and on social media though it was much easier.

basicandbizarre.bsky.social•92 days ago

Ok but women writing SFF isn't a new thing. Ursula K Leguin, Mercedes Lackey, Octavia Butler, Andre Norton, Anne McCaffrey, and more were all pretty big names in SFF circles through the 80s and 90s and in some cases before that.

rhysshelmerdine.bsky.social•92 days ago

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m disappointed stores often push the stereotype of certain demographics only write certain genres, and I’m also not surprised that people assume the same thing based on what they are presented with at those stores.

rhysshelmerdine.bsky.social•92 days ago

Absolutely! And I know that now, but unfortunately I didn’t back then when I was younger, and I naively thought that I could learn about them from bookstores. 1/2

bisexualkaiju.bsky.social•92 days ago

Also your 12 year old will read things that aren't appropriate for them, it's inevitable.

shy-magpie.bsky.social•92 days ago

I am honestly alarmed at how many parents seem to be unwilling to teach their kids to put a book down if they need to and how talk it out if it brings up big feelings. Its like they resent the book for making them talk to the kid

bisexualkaiju.bsky.social•92 days ago

They want entertainment for kids to give them a break from parenting. So yeah. They DO resent it.

shy-magpie.bsky.social•92 days ago

Part of the bargain for me being allowed to watch shows with the adults and be trusted to pick my own books was that I'd be expected to talk with mom at any point about them. I think this makes it hard for me to understand sometimes how other people expect kids to relate to media.

shy-magpie.bsky.social•92 days ago

Not saying that watching Next Gen expecting a pop quiz on the ethics of the episode at any commercial is the only way to teach it, but it turns out some of the conversations about my cartoons I left feeling very listened to were changing her mind on if it was age appropriate & not brain candy

legalassassin.bsky.social•91 days ago

I remember faking my age to get to the 18+ art on DeviantArt and stories on https://Fanfic.net when I was 13…

trejon.bsky.social•92 days ago

Indeed it’s the only way a 12 year old becomes a well-rounded adult

devilsdoorbell.itch.io•92 days ago

I legitimately think “reading a book that’s too mature for you” is a rite of passage for tweens.

crowking.bsky.social•92 days ago

ah, Brian Lumley's Necroscope, I remember you fondly

taupress.com•92 days ago

Delany's "Dhalgren" blew my immature (white middle-class) mind.

It didn't break me.

haileypiperfights.bsky.social•92 days ago

THIS

rebeccaevita.bsky.social•92 days ago

I'm so sorry.

I'm waiting for someone to skip my content warning and get mad, but it thankfully hasn't happened yet.

pnksounds.bsky.social•92 days ago

im mad, stop it now!!!

gemmafiles.bsky.social•92 days ago

Me, re all my books: PLEASE don't give this to your 12-year-old unless your 12-year-old is me at 12, which seems unlikely

gemmafiles.bsky.social•92 days ago

Me, at 12, reading A Book of Tongues: Oh wow, this has doomed romantic explicit gay sex, which I can't find on the Internet because the Internet hasn't been invented yet! Yes, PLEASE!!!

haileypiperfights.bsky.social•92 days ago

But not impossible!

xaviergarcia.bsky.social•92 days ago

Call: This was not appropriate for my 12-year-old

Response: Then your 12-year-old is weak

tcparker.bsky.social•92 days ago

Also, why are you policing the books your 12 year old reads?!

(Pretty sure by 12 I was hoovering up the contents of the library solo...)

settledsuccubus.bsky.social•92 days ago

I remember my mother going off at the school I was at for allowing me to read Goodnight, Mr Tom when I was 10/11 and to this day I do not understand what was so bad about me reading it.

merelydovely.bsky.social•92 days ago

goodnight mr tom IS a middle grade children's book! that's exactly the age it was written for!

settledsuccubus.bsky.social•92 days ago

I have since learnt this as an adult, and I am even more baffled.

merelydovely.bsky.social•92 days ago

i understand why a parent might be appalled at the worst parts of the child abuse featured in the book, but i wouldn't be surprised if more parents were upset that it features a woman getting her boob out in front of a 10-year-old boy.

and then some parents just hate books with child death

settledsuccubus.bsky.social•92 days ago

I don't think my mum cared about the boob part, it was definitely the child abuse she objected to me reading about. I was wrapped in cotton wool growing up, not that it actually kept me safe.

editrixemma.bsky.social•92 days ago

I like to have an idea what my kids are reading (in case they want to talk about it), but I don't think I've ever stopped them from reading anything. I'm like you, discovered the library around 12 and never looked back, my mum told the librarian I was allowed to check out whatever I liked.

haileypiperfights.bsky.social•92 days ago

Some parents pilot helicopters from cradle to "why don't my kids talk to me anymore?"

By 10 I was stealing my mom's Dean Koontz books. I get that not all kids read adult books, but I couldn't get enough.

hazelzorn.bsky.social•92 days ago

I love this. My 12yo picked up Nathan Ballingrud last week. (The Strange) He's delighted by it. I love watching his taste develop.

haileypiperfights.bsky.social•92 days ago

That's so cool 🤩

tcparker.bsky.social•92 days ago

I very much doubt my parents had any idea what I was reading at 12, but I'm certain they were fine with them being "adult" books (my first King was my mum's Carrie/Shining/Salem's Lot collection)

Likewise: when my eldest is in secondary school, I won't be demanding a reading list from her

stinaleicht.bsky.social•92 days ago

I’ve been fighting this very battle since 2011.

And it existed long before that.

hirschi.bsky.social•92 days ago

haileypiperfights.bsky.social•92 days ago

I don't mind if they find my books (even if I shriek inside, I know it's stuff I would've been grabby-handed at back then). But they're not the target. The complaint was a parent checking A Light Most Hateful.

But I also had a nice email of someone whose daughter loved Benny Rose the Cannibal King.

wandawalker.bsky.social•92 days ago

I had someone who was 19 send me a very nice message about how much they'd loved my explicit BDSM-laced romance story from back in 2015 and I was like you know what, I'm just gonna say thank you and move on lol. (To be fair to her, i don't know what year she read it)

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