Like many parents I know, I consider myself a filter between my children and the world. Before they watch a movie, my husband and I approve it. When there are gory photographs in the morning papers, I tuck them out of sight. When a family dinner conversation veers to a subject that is too mature, I steer it in a different direction.

So I felt uneasy at first when, on an extended holiday in South Africa, my young children had a lengthy encounter with a mother and daughter who had no money, no food, and nowhere to live. “We’re so hungry,” the mother said as she approached us.

We were sitting at the scenic harbor in Cape Town, outside the enormous waterfront complex that is filled with shops, restaurants, live bands, and crafts markets. My children were taken aback by their appearance: The little girl had lice in her hair that I could see from 5 feet away. I watched their eyes open wider as they stopped next to us. We heard of how the mother didn’t have the $25 she needed to send her daughter to school for the next term, we heard of how their shack in the townships had burned down. Later, we went and bought them lunch, like many of us who were raised in New York in the ’70s and ’80s did on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

That night, the questions poured in at bedtime. The encounter provided us the opportunity to discuss poverty, food, fortune, the concept of basic needs, and so many other subjects that we normally don’t discuss.

They asked such thoughtful questions and their perspectives were so broadened that I couldn’t help wonder if I’ve been filtering too much. In trying to protect my children from things that I think are too disturbing, am I denying them a gradual awakening to the realities of this world? Am I fooling myself that I can control the time when my children are faced with the harsher realities around them?

My desire to protect – perhaps overprotect – my children is not unusual. It is reflected in many arenas (baby-proofing, anyone?), but it is especially obvious in the stories that we read to our children. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, when many of the classic fairy tales were written, stories were filled with gruesome details. Characters were executed, parents abandoned their children, limbs were chopped into bits, and there were often unhappy endings.

Today, fairy tales have characters that live happily ever after. Sure, the bad guys may get their comeuppance, but readers rarely get the gruesome details. We have rewritten the classics and excised the gore. And there is a new generation of tales that reflects the messages we want our children to absorb. In Robert Munsch’s “The Paper Bag Princess,” the princess not only rescues the prince, but she realizes that there is more to romance than fine clothes and coiffed hair.

But if the success of Harry Potter and Narnia say anything at all, it speaks volumes about our children’s need for fantasy – gore included. Children already know that the world is filled with inconsistencies and that things aren’t always fair. Children need to be inspired by the battle between good and evil. They need to have a legitimate and safe way to release their aggressive – even vicious – fantasies.

When we bought lunch for the family in Cape Town, I realized just how different New York is from when I was growing up. I can still remember the faces of the homeless men who lined the stretch of Madison Avenue that I walked every day to go to and from school. I can think of just one time in the past few years that I bought a sandwich for someone who said she was hungry.

As a child, though, I remember seeing crack vials on the streets, hearing the stories of my brothers being mugged, and I especially remember that sinking feeling when I knew someone was following me in Central Park. I knew exactly how to successfully handle the situation; the problem was so widespread that we had been taught what to do in school.

The New York that my children call home is in many ways a paradise. Things are so clean. Crime feels remote. The irony is that this idyllic setting has resulted in even more protective parents. Our children seem so naive that we feel the need to keep them sheltered for longer than ever from the more complicated realities that await them.

But the clean streets and the safer city are all the more reason to carefully but surely expose our children to the more complicated and darker side of life. At some point, depending on their ages, their horizons will be broadened by being exposed to the reality of people living in shelters, the war in Iraq, and the massacres in Darfur.

And it is not our job just to widen the filters. It is also our responsibility to instill in our children a sense of obligation to do something about the injustices that surround them. Even in the new and improved New York City, there are still several shelters and soup kitchens that need your help.

sarasberman@aol.com