Some parents in Bellingham, Mass., are upset about an event that allows elementary students to play poker at the town’s library.
About 20 children showed up for Monday night’s “Bubblegum Poker” event. Some are worried it will open the door problems down the road.
The director of the Mass Council for Compulsive Gambling told the Boston Herald that part of the program should teach about the dangers of gambling.
Gambling for sugar @ your library
We had an onslaught of kids at the library, when I was working there, who wanted to play Yu-Gi-Oh. The YA librarian asked the director if that was okay for them to do… Some patrons had complained about “card games” going on.
The director said, “As long as they aren’t gambling, let them.”
Whether playing poker as kids causes gambling addiction down the line… Who the heck knows. I suppose it could, but statistically, I doubt every kid that’s ever played poker has a problem when they’re grown. Otherwise, who wouldn’t be a gambling addict?
The real issue is that the library could probably be doing more constructive, equally fun things for kids with this time that doesn’t totally cheese off certain groups in the community.
I can see them wanting to break out of the traditional story time, summer reading program sort of modes of operation to appeal to a different kind of kid. But I think poker was sort of a poor choice.
Re:Gambling for sugar @ your library
For quite a few years now, children’s departments have been doing almost anything to get the kids into the library and, hopefully, thinking of the library and the staff as cool. At one point my branch had break dancing contests. Does it work? I would bet it does to an extent.
In this case, if there is a strong but subtle message about gambling, then I would say this is a very positive event.
And just letting kids have fun in the library is certain to cheese off some people in the community!
Re:Gambling for sugar @ your library
Then, you know, the more I think about it… I think more than playing poker, what bothers me is the sugar issue. (Yes, my husband’s in the health profession. It’s starting to rub off). I guess I’m thinking it would be more constructive to give “poker chips” that aren’t edible…
The break dancing contest idea, IMHO, is much cooler than the poker idea. It gets the kids active, in the library doing something they enjoy, and isn’t viewed (rightly or wrongly) as underaged gambling…
Talent shows or variety shows are also insanely popular. Or more on a book theme… poetry slams. I don’t know, unless there’s some underlying reason why poker was chosen (a bunch of kids came in and said, “We want to play poker!”) I’m not entirely sure that that was really the most logical choice for a kid’s program.
Adults, sure… As a fund raiser? Yeah, go for it.
squeaky wheels
It makes me nuts that the fraction of parents who think that Harry Potter will cause their 10 year old to drink goat’s blood or who are still reeling from the fact that women are allowed to wear pants OUT IN PUBLIC AND EVERYTHING get some much time, money and effort spent on being catered to.
Can’t every library have a “if you are a crazy, bassackwards, sheltered, snake-handling, repressed, nosy, provincial yahoo your complaints will be routed to the dumpster” policy?
Re:squeaky wheels
Oh yeah, I thought it was pretty rich that the person from the Mass. Council on Compulsive Gambling wanted the library to do a program along with the poker games about the dangers of gambling.
Because nothing will bring in teenagers like lectures, stern warnings and tedium.
Also, WTF? With the young adult dept.’s copious spare time? Yeah we’ll be a counseling center, a church, day care, 12 step program and a homeless shelter. I’ll get right on that anti-gambling programming.
Re:squeaky wheels
However, the fact is, gambling is an increasing problem with kids. A number of organizations have begun sounding the alarm of the number of children addicted to online gambling, or with the strong potential to do so. When this story was discussed before, I explained why many libraries will do just about anything to pull in the kids. What I didn’t add is that I do think this was a poor choice of activity.