Are the classics that good?

As one famous movie said, “The world is changing. Music is changing. Even drugs are changing.” And children's literature doesn't stand still either. Many books are becoming irrelevant, and I’m not even talking now about outdated realities (pioneer childhood, for example), but about an outdated worldview. Parenting is changing, the approach to children is changing, and, frankly, thank God!

As a child, I loved the poems of Agnia Barto, but now I can’t read them without internal protest: her children are completely crybabies, slobs, lazy people and deceivers. You can really feel how the children’s poetess is annoyed by those who do not march in formation with everyone else, but show their individuality. She was a tough person, and her attitude to the world, her categoricalness, desire to denounce and read notations are clearly visible in her poems.

And recently I decided to listen to Zoshchenko’s children’s stories with my child, expecting for some reason soft humor and a bright atmosphere. Why did I decide that? From my childhood, I only remembered the story “Galoshes,” in which Lyolya and Minka, brother and sister, sold their galoshes to a junk dealer and bought themselves ice cream with the proceeds. For some reason I remembered that it was very funny. But in the end, the children faced such a severe punishment for such a minor offense that I couldn’t even explain to my surprised child why. Why did the father forbid the children to eat ice cream for two whole years and sold all (absolutely all!) of the children’s toys. And dad really remained adamant all two years, horror! But perhaps this was the norm before? In other stories it’s no better (the grandmother is especially good there!), so I somehow explained to my son that children are not raised like that now, and we never returned to Zoshchenko.

Of course, most adults (in Russia at least) continue to treat children the way their parents treated them in childhood, but still the shift is noticeable: many mothers understand the need for changes in upbringing. And in the books of modern authors we will not find moralizing, accusations and humiliation. Long live the new!