I appreciate your response, and I'll address your concerns in turn.
> some of the books are only appropriate for certain ages
My great aunt was the main librarian at my elementary and middle school. Early on, I'd pretty much read every book that was interesting to me in our library. The rest of the material was not engaging for various reasons. Sensing my appetite and believing I could handle more adult-oriented material, she gave me access to a secret shelf in the back which contained adult novels deemed not suitable for the shelves. I was really into slasher and supernatural horror at the time, and there were a surprising amount of such novels already on the normal shelves, and quite a few novels had sexual content (I read a lot of Judy Blume, etc).
But this adult section gave me what I was missing. The stories weren't just more adult because more killing, or more sex, or whatever, the stories themselves were written for more advanced minds. Having taught myself to read at age 3 and having commanded a collegiate reading level by second grade, I finally felt like I wasn't stuck and could continue to progress as a reader. Since my computer use at home was heavily monitored and firewalled, this was great. The agreement was that I would not tell my grandparents about this arrangement; she knew to some degree how oppressive her brother was.
Later on in high school, I made friends with the bus driver who went by the local library, and convinced her to take me to the library after school instead of home, so that I could read and have unfiltered internet access to learn what I wanted without oversight and avoid a few hours of potential abuse at home. The library was my lifeline. I inundated myself with the staff to get extra privileges and slack. I hosted an open mic night, etc. When I met the love of my life, that's where I would take her to spend time. We would study together and get to know one another in a safe place, away from our oppressive parents/guardians. We're still together, 16 years later, and I owe that to the library providing a safe space.
At this point, my guardians literally just wanted me to end up dead in the street, so they stopped paying attention enough when I wasn't home that I was finally able to grow and discover myself. Up until that point, I had no concept of a personal identity and struggled to form one, because most aspects of my life and thoughts were controlled by my religious zealot guardians.
> They didn’t feel comfortable providing additional filters.
The above situation might be why.
> you can read anything you want as long as it’s paper.
I've read some very subversive things on paper, from 120 Days of Sodom to the manifestos of deeply-troubled individuals, and plenty in between. And anything can be printed out. I used to print out adult or erotic stories as a kid and hide them so that I could read them later. I had a small, but coveted secret stash of adult magazines. My belongings were regularly searched, as I was not even allowed so much as to draw anime figures with swords, or journal freely, so everything had to be routinely searched. Sometimes I didn't have a door. All that happened is I got better at hiding things.
Anyway, the material being on paper seems like an arbitrary line to draw.
> I get some parents are abusive, but I’m very opposed to using “a parent might be abusive” to limit parents discretion- within reason.
While hopefully unintentional, what you're saying is, "Because I can provide a privileged household where my child has (what I consider to be) reasonable restrictions, I should be allowed to have access to absolute and chilling effect inducing levels of surveillance and control over my child, and if that means that less privileged children with objectively abusive households live in a total hellscape, that's their problem and not mine. I only care about the welfare of my children, and other children are just collateral damage. Besides, it's statistically not many children who have to live in a total hellscape. And I didn't have to experience that myself, so it's fine."
> When parents are identified as abusive there is a system to mitigate damage
That's a nice idea, for sure. That is not how my life played out. I had two drug addict parents who went in and out of jail and homelessness, and lived with my abusive grandfather who was an ex boxer turned Catholic deacon. He would regularly beat the shit out of me and do awful things to me, and controlled every aspect of my life, would strangle and shake me while telling me that I'm Satan, etc. Cops were over all the time because the violence would get really bad and everyone in the family would join in on physically assaulting me.
The "mitigation" was them telling me that if I didn't listen to my benevolent grandfather, then I would be taken to a foster home or juvie, where they assured me my life would be even worse, and I would have even less access to an opportunity to escape the cycle of poverty and abuse.
> This will fail some kids. But the alternatives fail more.
It's so easy to write things off by saying, "you gotta break some eggs to make an omelette" or something, when you or your family aren't the eggs being broken. Instead, this impacts a disproportionate number of impoverished children like me who did not have other financially stable environments in which to flee. It's classism, when you peel back all of the layers.
I hope you don't take this post negatively and understand why I feel the way I do about these things, and why "getting it" isn't enough if the conclusion is still, "this system works for me and therefore the lives it ruins are worth it."
