Why can’t we have nice things? It’s “not safe for the children” apparently. Artists, authors, developers and publishers like to share their work with the public. Whether it’s a television show, novel, video game, movie or song, some people like an audience.

Due to the content of some of these things, companies put warnings on them to let parents know what they’re possibly buying their child.

However, some people don’t seem to believe that these warnings exist.

They like to look for something or someone to blame for the violence today other than themselves. Usually the case is that parents are rather neglectful of their children, just wanting them out of their hair.

Then the kid does something later in life and they blame the game they bought to keep them out of their hair. A bit ironic isn’t it?

One of the biggest things that parents have an outcry for is video games such as Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat, God of War, or any old first person shooter game. They claim that these video games are too violent and should be banned from being sold if not censored. How about not buying a game that’s rated for mature players only?

An example is a cancelled cartoon that was quite popular, Invader Zim, some parents got into a huff, accusing the show of it being too scary for the children and it should be taken off the air.

Books aren’t safe from this madness and unfortunately a victim of the whole save the children hysteria was none other than the Harry Potter series. Christian schools saw witchcraft and wizardry in the series and decided to prohibit the books out of fear that the students would be influenced by the devil’s work.

The book was sold at fairs in elementary schools nationwide. I’m not sure whether to laugh at how absurd this is or to cry.

If it were something like 50 Shades of Grey then I could totally understand. No one should read that, especially any 13 year olds, but Harry Potter? It’s not real it’s fantasy.

What irks me is that some parents seem so absured that they don’t really care about what their child is playing, watching, or listening to. That is, until they do something wrong instead of accepting responsibility for their neglect, they rather point the finger at the media and blame them.

Back to the subject of video games, which is probably the biggest scapegoat of a parent’s negligence, and has even face the threat of being banned of being sold in some countries.

One game that comes to mind is Valve’s Left 4 Dead 2, the sequel to their popular first person shooter surrounding four survivors trying to fight off hordes of undead while either making their way to safe houses or holding on until rescue arrives.

While it’s sold in the United States with the proper Entertainment Software Rating Board, Australia and Germany have even considered censoring the game to “tone down the violence.”

If they’re old enough to play it, it should be no problem unless they can’t differentiate reality from fantasy, which is a whole different subject altogether.

This was the ESRB rating created just to let people know what’s in the video game they want to buy. They can be as low as rated EC (Early Childhood, which is extremely kid friendly) to the highest rating they can put on a game cover: AO (Adults Only).

If parents saw that the game they were about to buy for their kid had either an AO or a M rating(Mature audiences only) they should be going “Danger Will Robinson! Woop woop!” and not buy the game.

It’s not the media’s problem to control what a kid sees. It’s the parents’ responsibility.