Jessica, of the most excellent Read, React, Review (formerly, Racy Romance Reviews), posted a couple of links to a kerfuffle involving Dear Author. Since these days I skip more than I read over there, I hadn’t realized that a recent review of Sinful (erotic romance by Charlotte Featherstone) was written by a 15 year old.

I left a couple of comments over at Jessica‘s, but since I’m still thinking about the issue, I’m going to expand a bit here:

Unless there is clear danger–a kid is leaning over a bridge’s handrail and there is no adult keeping an eye on the kid… a kid is hanging upside down from a thin branch three six feet high, and there’s no adult below ready to catch him if the branch breaks… there’s a toddler running on the street and no adult in sight… there’s a barefoot child stepping on grass where you know there are nettles… there’s a bunch of children taunting, pushing, shoving, hitting another child… there are adults abusing a child…–unless the situation is clearly damaging to the child’s well being,

please do not parent other people’s children.

Perhaps I feel strongly about this because a few years back I got taken to task by a group of women–fellow readers, over the now-defunct Suzanne Brockmann board–for allowing my then-fourteen year old to read Linda Howard’s Mr Perfect.

OMG, how dared I! (more…)