What I have of my persuasive essay so far...

Censorship is, when it comes to young children, a necessary evil. We don’t like having to withhold information, but we have to when something might be too inappropriate or too scary for a three-year-old. But for teenagers and adults, what is left in any media that needs to be kept from us? As grown-up human beings, we have to be able to handle media of the kind that is out there now, and there’s no point in keeping us in the dark then. Besides, just because a “harmful” type of media is out there doesn’t mean we choose to expose ourselves to it. It’s a choice. On top of that, whether the media is books, video games, or television, media is a form of free speech, which is a right in our country. Censorship is a violation of that right. So, censorship may be necessary for toddlers and elementary school kids, but as we get older, censorship becomes a hindrance.
Adults deem some information and some topics unsafe for children to know. And I admit, there are topics that would traumatize children if they knew about it from the get-go. Plus, parents want to keep their children “innocent” for as long as possible. But, at that point, we get caught in a vicious cycle. As children get older, we realize that they need to know these things. But, we don’t know how to tell them, and we keep putting it off until some other kid at school tells them about it. That’s where censorship starts to get bad – we don’t know when to stop withholding information.
With children, there’s the same problem with censoring books. Public and school libraries and constantly challenged by upset parents who claim that some books on their shelves should be removed. They argue that the material is inappropriate or in some other way mentally harmful to readers. But you’d think that people would trust others to make good decisions about what they read. Besides, “harmful” books in the past have included the Harry Potter series and even a picture book entitled Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, in which all of the characters were animals. Do you know why that one was banned in one library?
Because the police were offended that the policemen in the book were pigs. Ridiculous.
The parents of young readers can help their children pick appropriate reading material, and older readers should be expected to choose books that they feel comfortable with. However, people are too sensitive, and they expect that everyone else is offended by the same books, when really, we think they’re fine. The censoring of books is restricting our right to choose what we read. It restricts our freedom of speech. Censoring should fall to parents when it comes to their children, not the government.