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Religion and Books
I never thought my parents wouldn’t want me to read. Or that it would make them nervous. I never thought that it would involve religion!
By Susana Lobo
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One hundred high school sophomores were assigned to write personal reflections as part of an essay contest at LA’s John Marshall High School. The winning entries were turned into audio essays through a collaboration between 826 LA, a writing program and Youth Radio, a youth media production company. Subjects ranged from multi-cultural identity, loss, relationships with parents to young love, reflections on the world, and teen idols. We're presenting some of these essays in our series High School Confidential. Today, Susana Lobo brings us a story about how books strained her relationship with her parents.
I never thought my parents wouldn’t want me to read. Or that it would make them nervous. I never thought that it would involve religion!
The drama started out about two years ago.
One of my favorite series of books is the Cirque Du Freak Series. The covers have pictures of vampires, werewolves or scary demons. And have scary titles like “The Trails of Death.”
My parents worried when they saw this. They said it wasn’t healthy, or lady like.
I began to wonder why? Then one of the answers revealed itself when my dad didn’t let me get another book.
“Because those books of yours are demonic.”
That’s what he said. One time I tried to tell them that the books helped me write, that they helped me in school.
They replied, “Are you ashamed of being a Christian?” I was like woah! How did it get to this? They stood there, wanting an answer. But what was the correct answer? If I said yes, they might hate me. If I said no, they would say,“ Then you shouldn’t be reading that.” So I stayed silent. Wrong move. Since I didn’t answer, they thought it was yes.
I’m not religious, but I’m not ashamed either. I didn’t understand why religion should get in the way of my books.
Eventually after much convincing, they bought the whole ‘help me in school’ argument This worked for me for a while, and I could read Cirque Du Freak again.
But life is like a roller coaster. And my ride was about to go back down.
My parents went back to being strict on what I read. To lighten the mood I began to readromance novels even though I didn’t like them that much.
I borrowed my friend’s books. But they were full of steamy love scenes! If my parents knew, they’d explode .I was scared. So I kept the inside of the books to myself.
My parents were happy I was reading love stories, and let me read horror books again. I had a routine. I could only read horror books whenever I read at least two romance novels.
After some time, my parents decided they had to approve my books. So, whenever we went to a bookstore, I’d have to ask, “May I read this?” and wait for their verdict. Eighty percent of the time it was no. Like I said, it’s a roller coaster
I thought a lot about who I was to my friends and my parents. To my friends, I was a “colorful” gothic chick who enjoyed a good horror novel. To my parents, I was either a Christian or a girl who was possessed by an evil demon. Did my parents know me at all anymore?
I guess not much can be done. There is still that tension between me and my parents, so I borrow books from friends and read them in school. I can’t lose my books To me, that’s the scariest thing in the world.
BACK ANNOUNCE: That essay was part of a series High School Confidential produced by Youth Radio. To hear more of these essays online, visit www.youthradio.org. To find out more about the 826LA writing programs at Los Angeles High Schools, visit www.826la.org
©2007 Youth Radio
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