Handling Our Children with Rubber Gloves

"Tell them the dangerous things can be over come. Tell them that you can go out and dream. Tell them that you can go out and change the world." --- Neil Gaiman

I've been thinking about something a lot lately. Have you noticed how, as standards on one end of our society continue to make more allowances -- you are now allowed to say the "f" word once in a PG-13 movie -- the allowances at the other end of the spectrum are becoming much more strict.

I was watching Kung Fu Panda at the daycare I work at, and I started thinking about something. Anyone who watched that movie must agree with me that it is a very, very kid friendly movie. And yet, it's rated PG. Why? No where in there is there anything that should garner a PG rating. Then I thought back to the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast. Have you seen that movie? It's incredibly violent. It's amazing, and of course I'll let my kids watch it, but it's also very dark, very moody, and pretty violent. Wolves attack Belle on her horse, the beast is all kinds of angry and violent, and although it may get lighter for a bit, by the time Gaston is out to get the best -- to the tune of a song called "Kill the Beast" -- it becomes very violent again. While Po gets a few karate chops in, and uses the "Wushi Finger Hold" -- which involves a whoosh of air and that's it, Beast gets shot with several arrows and stabbed in the arm with a knife before Gaston falls to his death off of the castle.

Let's not forget a few other children's classics from a few years earlier -- The Black Cauldron, The Secret of NIMH, and The Wizard of Oz. All pretty dark and scary, and yet amazing and valued to this day for kids to watch. And then look at Enchanted, a very cute Disney movie that does a throw back to classic Disney cartoons -- including the witch turning into a dragon at the end. The rating...PG! Even though the movie was a live action amalgamation of every Disney movie ever made, it was rated a whole rating higher than those old movies.

So, I have to wonder. Why do we worry so much about our kids. I was raised on Rocko's Modern Life, Doug, Aaaaah, Real Monsters, and even stuff like The Nightmare Before Christmas. All of those were way darker and more mature than Phineas and Ferb, The Replacements, Lilo and Stitch, and The Emperor's New School. I'd like to think I'm a fairly normal person.

Back in February, I watched a new movie. It was based on a children's book, and when I watched it, I was blown away. The movie was spooky, yes, but it was also fantastic. The movie was Coraline, based on the book by Neil Gaiman. It was a very well received book, and a very well made movie.

One thing that I think makes a really good children's movie is where there's depth -- things for kids and adults. Of course kids aren't gonna notice a lot of the adult jokes -- and they shouldn't. But the adults enjoy it too. And it feels real, instead of dummed down and boiled down to a simple little drivel.

I always heard the phrase "A hero is only as power as the villain he overcomes." That's why fairy tales still resound with us to this day. Sure, it's pretty scary when the witch turns into a dragon at the end of Sleeping Beauty, but what kids take away is not that evil witches and dragons exist...or anything evil for that matter. What they take away is that they can be beaten.

What made me decide to write this post was an interview I saw with Neil Gaiman on YouTube. It covered a lot of his works -- his book Coraline, the fact that it was being made into a movie, and his new children's book The Graveyard Book, which won the 2009 Newberry Medal. There was a bit of controversy that it may be too scary for kids, but from what I've read of it, it's got about the same tone as Harry Potter when it came out. And it's a fascinating read for anyone, with little jokes for adults and kids throughout, well written, smart, and provocative. True, the book may start with a triple murder...but most stories start with an important death. Harry Potter started with a double murder, The Secret of NIMH started after Mrs. Brisby was widowed, and while the Scarecrow didn't die in The Wizard of Oz, he was torn limb from limb by the flying monkeys.

Anyway, there's really no right or wrong answer, I'm just curious why we've decided to treat our kids with rubber gloves more and more over the years. Kids used to be raised on the Grimm's Fairy Tales, and those were very morbid, but they taught us love conquers all, good defeats evil, and magic really does exist. Now we have very watered down versions of the original tales with the dragons' defanged and the witches' warts removed. And with these new prettied up versions of the old tales, are the heros really as heroic as they once were if the villains that they're overcoming are now mere shadows of their former selves? How heroic would Harry Potter have been if Lord Voldermort had been just an angry man with a grudge against kids instead of a murdering sociopath? Or if the dementors had been just hooded guards? What if the prince from Sleeping Beauty hadn't had to fight that dragon to get to his love?

Where have our heroes gone? And why do we feel that we need to diminish their struggles to protect kids from the real world. Neil Gaiman uses an amazing quote by G. K. Chesterton at the beginning of his book Coraline:

"Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."

What do you think? Do you think it was wrong to show us those scary, mature things when we were kids? Do you think that we should protect our kids from the darkness of the real world for as long as we can, or do you think that kids know there is darkness in the world, and these little stories and things are a message of hope that you can beat the witches? Let me know in the comments.

And judge for yourself. You can listen to Neil Gaiman's entire book The Graveyard Book on his site here. -- Read by the author! Very cool to see.

Also, here's the original interview -- a long interview, but a very, very interesting one.

Revenge of Lobster Man

How did I get here again? I'd like to say that I made some kind of horrible mistake, and I'm reaping the consequences of my actions, but that wouldn't be true. This is one time where I am not to blame for the misfortune that has befallen me, it is simply sorrow delivered straight from the Universe.

No, I didn't perform scientific experiments revolving around the genetics of lobsters and humans resulting in a super powered lobster man to rampage through my lab and nearby town in a furious rage on a quest to understand his origins. That would be way more interesting.

Thursday was my day off. To celebrate my day off, my friends and I -- and My Darling Dearest -- packed up and headed off to a swimming hole that we know of. It took a while to get there. My brother, who came along, thought we were fooling him when we told him you had to climb rocks to get there. We weren't. We were actually underplaying it a bit. It's a pretty hard hike to get to this swimming hole -- over enormous rocks cliffs.

Once there, I put on enough sunblock to fill the ozone layer and protect the Earth for the next 30,000 years. Then I went swimming. Then we ate lunch. Then I put on even more sunblock. I was literally dripping with it at one point, and I asked my girlfriend to aid me in the quest of rubbing it all in. We're both significantly Irish, so we burn easily. We knew the dangers.

Anyway, by the end of the day, which had resulted in about five hours of swimming, we headed back. It was hot. So hot, as a matter of fact, we all almost passed out. My face started going numb, so we all got back in the water -- a different spot, since we were on the hike on the way home -- to drop our body temperature some. By the time we got back, we were all thankful to be alive.

However, since then I have learned of the price I paid for my desire to continue shuffling along on this mortal coil. My ears, face, and back are sunburned raw, and my shoulders are so sunburned I have hundreds of blisters popping up. It hurts to move, and shirts are things worn only in the most dire of situations. Nobody else got it that but, just me and Oh Dearest One. She got it just as bad as I did.

I missed work Friday because it was so bad, and while it's improved since then, I'm not looking forward to going back to work today just so I can see the little tykes and have them slap me on my burns. By the way, it's "Wet and Wild" themed week at work...yippee dee. I get to be outside in the baking hot sun for hours on end. And I have to go to a water theme park on Wednesday with the kids. Even more time spent outside...

As if that wasn't bad enough, I got a TB test on Monday. On Wednesday, I was supposed to have it checked, but my boss left for the day and left me in charge, so i couldn't leave. So now I have to start all over!! I hate needles, and now I have to do it again...and then again b/c if you haven't had a TB test in 2 years, they make you take two...

Wake me up when this week is over, okay?

Being a Public Nuisance

So, on top of the new job, I am now the proud owner of lower ears. I received two things yesterday: a new haircut, and a shot.

I had to be talked into the haircut. I don't mind haircuts. Except for the fact that I never like the outcome -- which is probably more the result of me being terribly down on myself -- they're not terrible experiences. My aunt, my mother, she who is so dear to me all talked me into getting a shorter haircut that can be gelled into the "messy" look. Since that was three votes from three women I respect highly, I caved. They think it looks fantastic, so I'll take their word for it. Anyway, haircuts = not a big deal. Sitting in a chair while someone hacks off the fluffy curls that I get when I let my hair grow long isn't painful, and actually sometimes results in some nice conversations.

On the flip side, needles are the devil in every way. Shots are an outdated procedure, and a large source of physical and mental torture, in this age when we can land men on the moon and carry an entire library of books on a device about the size of a cigarette box or smaller. I also, I'm ashamed to admit, throw a huge fit when I have to get them. I complain for days in advance, and the complaining grows worse the closer the shot gets. On the plus side, this means I can never be a heroin user.

Because of my new job, I had to get tested for TB. I have never had a TB test before, but anything that has to do with needles or me losing blood to anybody else puts me on edge.

My girlfriend went with me and, God bless her, she should be optioned for sainthood for not strangling me in the waiting room. I complained the entire time about how they were going to stick me with the wrong concoction and then I'd be sent home in a pine box. When the nurse finally led me back there, I heard a kid crying, and started accusing the doctors of running an underground organization that tortured children and sold their tears on the black market. All this was in good nature, but to cover over how scared I actually was of the needle. I don't think my girlfriend realized how scared I really was until she saw the look on my face -- the look of panic in my eyes -- when I saw the needle.

"Are you serious? Do you see that thing? I thought they said it'd be tiny! You could harpoon a whale with that thing! I was thinking a quarter of an inch long, not two inches! Are you harvesting my marrow? You'll scrape my bone with that thing!"

My girlfriend is way too patient. She even managed to keep her cool when I began demanding blood for blood when the area I got the shot started bleeding.

On the way out the door, I was still ranting, so they gave me a sticker with a happy purple hippo on it that said, in big, happy, ironic letters, "I got a shot!" I accused the hippo of making a mockery of my traumatic experience, and obviously the hippo got it's jollies by laughing at my pain. Also, because the test left a bump for a few minutes, I began trying to convince my girlfriend that what they really did was give me an injection that would raise my body temperature to ridiculously high levels, and that bump was actually me boiling from the inside out.

Eventually, for the sake of our relationship, and my relationship with anybody that meant anything to me at all, I shut up. I consider it payback, though. Dearest One has had her moments where she has gone off on rants too -- usually in traffic when she sees a bumper sticker that contradicts her beliefs, or when she's cut off by some inconsiderate bozo. Once, she tried to tailgate and intimidate a diesel hauling a backhoe in her tiny little Ford. You just can't do that.

I may have been loud and obnoxious before and after the shot, but during, I was calm, quiet, and still as can be. There's something to be said when all you have to do is look into someone's eyes and know that everything is going to be okay.

Sore, Sick, and Satisfied

Being home for the summer opens up a lot of problems. I don't have as much money, if any is left, and so it eventually becomes needed that I get a job. Unfortunately, my experience with jobs has been pretty poor. Fast food restaurants are really terrible places, and I couldn't bring myself to work at another. I was desperate to find a job other than a fast food restaurant.

However, as I mentioned before, my town was hit by a tornado a few months ago. Jobs have become scarce, since many of the places that you could have worked are now piles of rubble. Just because the jobs are gone, doesn't mean the bills stop coming, though, and I had a nasty sized car insurance bill coming my way. My mom was very insistent that I find a job since I didn't have any leftovers from my refund check this time -- I spent down to the wire, mostly on emergencies that kept popping up.

As my flexing room got smaller and smaller, and the ideal places to work -- where I can score a more desirable, and cleaner, job as a cashier or stockboy -- hiring fewer people, I could practically see the fast food employers rubbing their knobby hands together and getting the human parchment contract ready. (For those who don't know, I claim to this day that the last fast food place I went to work made me sign a human skin contract in my own blood.)

Just when things started getting desperate, my family reunion rolled around. These things always mean two things: 1) A whole bunch of people will pack into one very hot place, and 2) There will be much smiling and greeting and idle chatter until they eventually cluster off into little cliques like some kind of bizarre high school. I'm always hesitant to go to these things because I only know a handful of people really well, the rest are just acquaintances I see every year. To make matters worse, I was talked into doing a skit for them this year. God bless my girlfriend, she spent the whole hour before I was supposed to go on doing her best to pump up my ego enough to get me on stage -- I think mostly it was so she could laugh at me.

Anyway, I digress. I did the skit, and then I started talking to my aunt. She's an awesome lady who I love dearly. I mentioned that I was getting desperate for a job, and she mentioned needing help at the daycare she's running at her church. Of course, I'm thrilled to find this out. True, kids are a handful, but it's so much less stressful than a fast food place. I was ecstatic. I love kids, my girlfriend says I'm nothing but an oversized kid anyway, so I couldn't wait to get started.

Now I'm sore all over. I haven't been this tired in a long time. And to top it all off, it's only a week in, and I already caught a cold from one of the little...darlings...despite all this, I'm amazed at how smart these kids are, and at how creative they are, and as long as they have someone to mediate things, how well they get along.

Needless to say, I'm very pleased with how things turned out.