“Mom, I really want to read this,” my eldest said, watching yet again as the trailer played on the television set.

“That’s a book for grown-ups,” I told her. I wondered, not for the first time, why the ad was being shown during a family program.

“But I can read it! I’ve read other books for grown-ups!”

“Honey, it’s a scary book. I know the commercial doesn’t make it look that way, but it was written for adults.”

The bargaining then began in earnest. The child pointed out the all the other “grown-up” books with “scary” situations she’d read (The Lord of the Rings and Nancy Drew fell into this category). “I like scary books!” she whinged. “And you know I’m a good reader!”

I allowed that she was indeed a good reader. “Nevertheless,” I told her, “This is a book about a murder. I don’t think you really want to read that sort of thing.”

Oh but she did. “And,” she pointed out, “I’ve read other books with murders in them.”

I didn’t ask for an accounting of those books. “Honey, the murder is of a girl, someone not much older than you.”

“Mom, that’s ok! I’m not a baby anymore! And it looks interesting!”

“It is interesting!” Before the words were even out of my mouth I knew I’d screwed up.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Why can’t I read it if you’ve read it?”

I went with an old standby. “Because I am an adult and you are not.” Bedtime fast approaching (and my patience dwindling) I threw down the final card. “Child, the book is about the rape and murder of a fourteen year old girl. Is that really what you want to read right now?”

She looked puzzled. “What’s rape?”

Oh lord, I thought. Can we possibly have talked as much as we have about sex without any prior mention of assault? “It’s when one person forces another person to have sex when they don’t want to.”

The puzzlement morphed into disgust. “Oh,” she said. “I don’t want to read that kind of book.” And without any desire to pose further questions (believe me, I asked), she trotted off to bed.

I remember watching her sleep just weeks after she was born, amazed that this tiny human being had not yet experienced anything worse than the most fleeting touch of hunger. I dreaded the time when real life would invade that dreamy existence even to the extent that I would have to tell her no.

By now she’s suffered under my gentle and at time far from gentle correction for ten long years. I’ve told her no more times than she has hairs on her head. And yesterday I introduced the concept of rape into her life, reminding me of the strange mixture of love and cruelty necessary in parenting, wherein too much love can only be cruelty and a tiny bit of seeming cruelty must be used in order to temper love.