Lily Allen: Don't shelter the kids

Sometime last week, Jamelia suggested that she'd like to buy her kids a copy of Lily Allen's album but it's full of crack whores and swearing.

Allens response? Not positive, to be honest:

Maybe she should pay for that to get done herself. It's not coming out of my expenses!

"I think the more you shelter your children from that kind of stuff the more they're curious about it.

"It's the same with drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, the more you say, 'no', the more they think, 'Maybe I should try some'. I think, just be honest with them from the start."

Is that totally right, though, Lily? If you never sit down and explain to your children why you hope they wouldn't want to start taking heroin, the kids will be less likely to do smack?

More to the point, isn't there a crucial difference between "sheltering" your children and choosing to not want them exposed to swearing and talk about drugs until they're old enough to be able to understand that there are moral, ethical and cultural questions attached to them? Does it really make sense to suggest that three and four year old kids are capable of processing a song about prositution in the same way they'd respond to Time For Teletubbies?

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