Messing up a reader

As a concerned mom, I'm always curious as to what my teenage girls are reading. My prayer is that they will choose books that turn their eyes heavenward. Last night I saw my 2nd daughter reading a book that I hadn't seen before. The cover of the book, from the door of her room, seemed familiar. Turns out it's a book Oprah had on her show. She was nearly done with it. She also told me, forthright, that it had a lot of swearing in it. WHAT?! Ok, now's the time to keep my cool. I want to continue having her trust me and if I'm my usual self I know I'll blow this, too.

My usual self would tell her it's not ok for her to read that kind of junk. Why is she getting books like this? Why doesn't she ask me for some suggestions? Don't I have like 20 books sitting here that I've chosen and are appropriate for our home? Are you getting a good idea on how I would react. Well, I let it go to the wayside. As I said, she was nearly done with it anyhow. I did tell her that I'd heard about the book, that it'd been a hit with everyone, but the guy lied and none of it was true. Literally, I had no idea she was going to say this, "you just ruined the book!" I what? How did I ruin the book I wondered. I don't know anything about the book and maybe she was learning something from it.

This morning I wanted to connect with her again, I'm trying to be a good mom! I had watched a movie that same night, The Heartbreak Kid, and it was good/bad. The swearing in that movie left a bad taste in my mouth. They didn't use the everyday swear words, they used the words that women hate the most and used them often. Of course they used the *f*bomb quite a bit. The premise behind the movie was good and the storyline was funny, but had it left out all the swearing and the horrid sex scenes, it would've been a great movie.

So, I wanted to find out from my daughter if she felt like all the swearing took away from the story. I knew that she would think that initially I was trying to get her in trouble for reading such a book...all the way through. I tried to make the question as unconfrontational as possible. Yeah, didn't work so well. After she hesitantly answered, "no," I told her, briefly, about my experience with the movie, hoping it would get a conversation going. That didn't happen. Oh well, maybe next time. I also asked her if she'd ever want to blog her reviews and she gave me a shrugged answer. We shall see.

I've recently gotten her several books that seem like they'd be on par with what would capture her attention, yet keeping it God focused. I hope it works and that we can keep the positive stuff flowing as opposed to the options she's been chosing from her school library. Keep us in your prayers!