Sarcasm?! Not!!!

I haven't posted recently because I was quite sick.  Ironically enough with the H1N1 flu! (Please see previous posts about the culture of fear.) So I relied on children's movies and television to help me through the couple of hours between when my children finished lunch and when my husband finished work since I was completely exhausted and, by 2pm, just couldn't move or function.  So, I saw A LOT of children's films this fall, and I'm quite concerned about what I've seen.

As an older mom, who came of age in the 80s, I grew up in a particularly disfunctional relationship with Barbie.  As a child, she was my best friend - always cool, always popular, always accepted by her peers.  As a teen, she was dismissed as an archaic remnant of a less modern time when women had no role I ever wanted to be in.  As a young woman, increasingly aware of my "flaws", she was a symbol to be mocked - I remember laughing at different, unorthodox versions of the doll.  And, I distinctly remember telling anyone who would listen that I would never, ever let my daughter play with a Barbie.

Well, twenty years and three children later, Barbie is firmly ensconced in her pink plastic carrying case in our playroom.  I treasure the moments I get to play 'barbies' with my children (all of them), and remember with tears how my mom used to sew the coolest clothes for my doll.  I wish I had the time and the talent to do that. And now, after my illness and reliance on children's movies, I REALLY treasure the Barbie films.  They are appropriate in content for my young children, they deal with subjects like equality and tolerance, kindness and friendship.  This fall, we watched Barbie and the Three Musketeers and later, Barbie in A Christmas Carol.  Both films are awesome.  My son asked, "Why weren't girls allowed to be musketeers?"  It just doesn't make any sense to him that girls aren't equal to boys in some people's minds.  And I feel like Supermom! (And then I go overboard and show the kids School House Rock's "Suffering Until Sufferage"!) Disney fairy movies (Tinkerbell and Tinkerbell 2) are in the same vein as the Barbie films, and have the benefit of showing an attractive young fairy working with tools and thinking about the mechanics of things (engineering!).  But that's where it ends.

I made two significant mistakes this fall (aside from relying on movies & tv, but let's put that aside for now). I allowed my children to watch G-Force, the Disney/Bruckheimer film about special ops guinea pigs, and Home Alone, the classic Chris Columbus film with Macaulay Culkin.  G-Force was truly the silliest film every made, but that wasn't the problem.  In the film, one of the characters passes gas and says, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning!"  And the chorus of mice shout "The horror, the horror".  I laughed, of course, not realizing what had just happened.  Then a week later my son starts chiming "I love the smell of napalm in the morning!"  Trust me, it's not really that funny when a 6 year old says it, and then asks, "Mom, what's napalm?"  Ok.  How to answer that?!  Because I'll have to answer in such a way that makes the humour of the line ok with my kids, and I finally concluded that that was just not possible.  There's no way you can equate the reality of napalm with humour. Ever.  So, I used the question as an opportunity to talk about what's appropriate for characters in kids films to say, and what's not.  Seriously, the sheer disgust you feel watching Apocalypse Now, when that line is delivered, is totally undermined by a furry tail-less rat repeating it about his own flatulence.  I don't want to get all Tipper Gore, either though.  There is a place for sarcasm and biting humour - in films geared to pre-teens and older.  I love sarcasm, but I don't use it with my children.  Which brings me to Home Alone.

I had forgotten the disdain with which the McAllister family treated each other.   It's horrible to hear Kevin (Culkin) call his mom a 'dummy' and the kids call each other 'jerks' and 'morons'.  This is the same parenting era that gave rise to Barbara Coloroso and Mazelich and Faber's "How to talk so kids will listen".  It just doesn't compute.  It's awful, and really undermines all the work I've done to teach my kids to respect each other.  How did parents tolerate this film when it was released?  It's off our dvr now, and won't be returning, even though my kids laugh like nothing else when they watch it.  The long-term cost of Home Alone is too great.  And I realize now that Barbie and her fashion-forward friends are not the enemy anymore.  It's the complacency and disdain and distrust that Hollywood promotes as 'model' families.  Home Alone is a direct ancestor to the Simpsons, Two and a Half Men, and now Modern Family.  Enough is enough.  Real families aren't like that.  Real families love each other.  But real children can't distinguish between Hollywood fantasy and reality.  They need us to guide them, nurture them, and show them how Hollywood doesn't decide how we behave.

Lady Gaga Versus The Culture of Fear

I’ve been wanting to blog about Lady Gaga for some time now. My husband adores her. She speaks to his European soul. I’m not so convinced. The first time I heard Just Dance, I thought the song rocked, or whatever kids say now. And then I heard the lyrics. My first thought was, “not my daughter!”

I’m not so middle-aged that I can’t remember, vividly, what I did as a young adult in my late teens and early twenties. The “Just Dance” experience of being so blitzed that I didn’t know the name of the club, let alone where I’d left my friends, was the least of it. It’s not a period in my life that I’m proud of. Mostly I’m just glad I survived it. I’m not prepared as a parent to watch my children go through similar experiences. I’m terrified about what could happen to them, especially my daughter – which makes no sense since boys are just as vulnerable as girls. It can keep me awake at night. What if they get drunk? What about rufies and drugs? In my day everyone worried about AIDS, but now – it’s like a free for all! Kids not only think they’re invincible, so is everyone else, and it’s just not true. We’re delicate and easily damaged. I’m starting to hyperventilate.

My family recently went through a bout of the flu, and while I was up at 3:00 in the morning listening to my baby’s laboured breathing and coughing, checking out his fever, I started to worry. Did we have H1N1? What were the signs? Should I pack everyone up and head to the hospital in the middle of the night? Should I get the kids vaccinated? What happens if I get it? I have significant allergies that prevent me from getting the flu vaccine. I mentioned this late one night or early one morning to my husband who quickly lost his patience. “You always think you’re going to die when you get sick. Would you please stop it?! It’s the flu. It sucks, but it is what it is. If it was fun they’d call it a party.” I did not receive this editorial comment well.

After a cooling off period, as I was doing the dishes with my mp3 player on, to drown out the sounds of sick children and my opinionated partner, it occurred to me that he was right. Again. *sigh*. This fear of the flu inspired me to purchase more than $65 worth of over the counter medication for the family. It drove me to the clinic twice (which is where I probably got the flu in the first place). I can recite by heart the danger signs of H1N1 for adults and children. I have the sites bookmarked on my blackberry. Yes, 35,000 people in North America die of flu related illnesses each year, but the vast majority have underlying medical conditions or are elderly or otherwise medically compromised. Wait, do my allergies count? Am I compromised? What if...?

That’s the key. What if? I refuse to go to psychics or spiritual advisors because I don’t want to know what happens next. I really am enjoying this life, my family, the choices that I’ve made which have led me to this moment. But I keep anticipating disaster. I used to think that fear kept me alert, but it doesn’t. It distracts from the moment, from what is real, and the anticipation of disaster becomes the goal itself – my own rufie blacking out my common sense and knowledge of what’s important, serious and life-threatening.

Lady Gaga sings that “we may be plastic but we still have fun.” She’s wiser than her age. Enough of the culture of fear – fear of the flu, of the neighbour, of the sound of sirens, of the latest news, of growing up. It’s time to embrace the plastic, and kick the rest to the curb. Let go and just dance. Lady Gaga 1, culture of fear 0.