by Guy Page
I’d like to take a minute to talk about Vermont Senate Bill 220, a bill that would, one press report says, and I quote, “protect patrons ages 12 and up from having their library records disclosed to parents or guardians against their will.
Hmmm…. Protect 12-year-old library patrons from their parents?
I understand the argument made by Senate Education Chair Brian Campion (D-Bennington) – that children struggling with sexual identity will seek information more confidently if they know the library won’t rat them out to their parents. What if the kids are reading every book in the library about school shootings? Or they’re non-stop binging on books about teens who want to kill themselves? Don’t parents need to know that? Why should the Legislature and our libraries come between them and their children?
We all want to protect children. Protect them from drug and alcohol addiction. From mental illness. From too much time spent with the electronic babysitters of mass media and the internet. From pre-adolescent sexualization online and in real life.
They need our protection from bullies on the bus, on the playground, in the classroom and on the internet.
But what children don’t need is the library protecting them from their parents.