Dear Mrs. Jones(name has been changed).

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt.  I've heard nothing but good things about you since my oldest entered junior high.  At parent teacher conferences earlier in the academic year I could sense that everything I had been told was true-that you try to get to know each student and celebrate each individual's unique gifts, that you genuinely care for your students and strive to help them realize their potential.

For that reason, I was particularly disappointed this weekend to hear that you had referred to my daughter as incapable of "getting outside (her) perfect little bubble" because she didn't appreciate the sexual content she had encountered while reading a book on your recommended list.  My daughter is barely thirteen.  As I mentioned at parent-teacher conferences that because her instructional reading level far exceeds her emotional maturity level, we have always been concerned that the books that challenge her might contain content that is not age-appropriate.  You concurred, admitting that you yourself had skipped over a sex scene in one of the books you had read with the students in your accelerated class.

I have never been able to keep up with my daughter's voracious appetite for reading, due to the numerous responsibilities I have as the mother of five children.  For that reason, from the tender age of 8, I have instructed her to listen to her inner voice, to have the courage to skip over portions of books(or put the book down entirely) if she feels uncomfortable.  As an adult, I do that.  It is my right to filter what I read.

We, as parents, feel it our duty to teach our children correct principles and let them govern themselves.  We are both reasonably open-minded individuals who have traveled (and lived) overseas and recognize the "education" that a wide variety of experiences affords us and try to expose our children to a broad spectrum of ideas while expressing our own opinions on what contributes to a full and happy life.  Were you to sit in on our dinner time conversations, I think you would agree that they reflect that.

So pardon me when I take issue with you "shaming" (for lack of a better word) her preference for innocence.  She has every right to dislike a novel that offends her conscience and does not align with her ideals.  I am proud of her for her discernment and ability to censor the content she determines to be detrimental to her education.  We applaud people who march to the beat of their own drums, except when that drum promotes morality, apparently.  Then we call them judgmental.  Or bigoted.

There's a good chance that the information I got from my daughter and her friend was not completely accurate.  Having heard it secondhand, I acknowledge that.  I also recognize that it may not be a true reflection of your opinion.  Perhaps it was spoken light-heartedly or in jest.  I would hate to be judged by a single errant thought or a flippant response so I will refrain from passing a character judgment based on this single experience.  Still, I hope you will think twice before criticizing another seventh grader for following the dictates of her own conscience and determining the content she wishes to take into her mind.  You may think it's narrow-minded. I think it's judicious and, in our oversexualized, morally-compromised culture, even courageous.