Varying Reactions To Animated Rats

My daughter is a coward.

This is a well-established fact, and there simply is no room for debate, based on the overwhelming amount of evidence.  From the earliest age, when we would expose her to fine video entertainment, she would run out of the room and hide in her room.

I'm not talking about scenes of intense action and tension, she would run away when the Big Bad Wolf showed up on Sesame Street.  When the sight of a muppet, no matter how lupine its aspect, is enough to send you scurrying away, a paucity of courage must be acknowledged.

This habit continues to this day, and she puts her fingers in her ears and retreats to the safety of her bed whenever a movie or TV show takes a turn for the sinister (such as if a character is about to be caught taking cookies without permission, real gripping stuff.)

Now, a more sexist father would say that it doesn't matter, since she's 'only a girl,' and boldness will be unnecessary in her life.  But I am no such chauvinistic caricature, I am more of a general monster, and demand insanely high standards of all my children, regardless of gender.

But she is still young, and I guess there is still time for her to grow out of this phase, and I will love her either way, yadda, yadda, yadda.

But I'm not here to talk about her.

She has a younger brother, two years her junior, who has never shown any such trepidation, even when a little fear would be prudent (he shows no decent respect for the power of gravity, for example, and chooses to jump off of any and all surface to which he has access.)

Up till now, he hasn't really interacted with what was happening on the screen beyond occasionally holding his head at an angle like a confused dog.   But tonight was the first time he showed any kind of reaction to tension or scary action.  And it was truly remarkable.

So I'm remarking on it.

We were watching the Secret of NIMH, because we are the most awesome parents ever.  We got to the part where Dragon the cat is chasing Jeremy and Mrs. Brisby, which has lots of running and biting and excitement and foofaraw.  Grace was sitting there with her fingers in her ears, but Arthur was rapt.

Then the screaming started.  He jumped up and down shouting "what's happening? what's happening?"  With each lunge of the cat, he would suddenly shift left or right, as if trying to evade.  As the characters scrambled in terror, he stood, running in place, as if he could guide their actions to help them escape.  He was absolutely crazy, and looked utterly ridiculous.

It was awesome.

For the rest of the movie, he was riveted, and squealed with delight at al the scary/action scenes.  He was getting involved with the story the way few teenagers or grownups remember how.  It is my goal to foster that interaction, to make sure that imagination isn't just something he's supposed to grow out of, a silly phase suitable only for the early years, before relentless reality boils down life to a thick, syrupy goo of the practical and mundane.

Right now, my boy plays with toys, really plays with them.  I hear him playing in his room (when he and his sister are not competing in the 100 meter circular dash competition of the Screamalympics,) sitting on his floor with some Little People or toy cars, trains or plastic animals.  These become avatars of a nascent imagination, expressing hopes and fears, living their simulated lives at the whims of their tiny creator.

And that should never change.  While adults are supposed to outgrow playing with toys (who are you looking at?  I collect scale military models, thank you very much,) the fertile mind that gives life to those inanimate blocks of plastic should never be boxed up and sent to the curb.  An imagination, even a wild, eccentric one, may not be considered an essential part of any corporate portfolio, but it is crucial to being a fully developed person.  We are meant to have hopes and dreams, realized in the cinema of our minds.  It is humanity's birthright not merely to gaze up at the stars. but to people them with dreamfolk of all descriptions, and fabricate in our dream the means by which we might one day travel there.

How do you think we got to the moon?  Math?

Right now my boy has all that.  My job now is to encourage that, feed and water it with exposure to the right kind of books, music and films (his first version of Alice in Wonderland will be illustrated, not animated,) and most importantly to protect it.

Because the world will try to crush it out of him.  More so than his sister, he will be pressured by his peers to follow trends, watching what the others like, whether or not he finds it compelling.  He will be told to color within the lines, and to use the right voices when playing with toys, as canonized by the cartoons.  Later he will be told that creativity is not cool, and will be encouraged to abandon stories and narrative for 'reality TV' and humor based on people inflicting pain on their bodies with the shattered remains of their dignity.

It won't be cool to jump up and down with excitement over a story.

But in this house (whether it be here or moved to the lee of the stone,) he will know that his imagination is safe, and he can always express himself, no matter how outlandish his ideas.  Even if his sister has to leave the room during the tense parts.

I still love them both.



(Edit: okay....I guess math helped.)