Movies & Responsible Watching

Why is that mommy sad? He asks after a baby gorilla gets taken away by a Sabor in the first minutes of Tarzan; his mommy and daddy watching in horror as screams of terror can be heard in the distance.

Why is that boy getting a spanking? He asks while we’re watching Pinnochio and one of three disturbing cuckoo clocks (a turkey running from an axe, a bird fleeing a hunter with a gun).

What are we watching?  Then I remember, it’s what all children love…magical, enchanting Disney.

In what I thought would be simple and beautiful relaxation with my kids, I'm all the sudden having to explain death and evil to them. Up until now, my boys have watched a little Dora and Diego and Team Umizoomi. Swiper is about as evil as they’ve seen. 

Since movies haven’t been part of our world yet, I decided to give it a shot. A week ago, I came home with a few Disney movies, anticipating snuggle time and popcorn with my growing toddler and preschooler.  The first night, Zealand was asleep within the first 10 minutes. Luke stayed up for about an hour and there were so many intense questions posed upon me that I wasn’t sure I was ready to answer.

Of course, many of the subjects that came up are things we do talk about or need to talk more about.  Why you shouldn’t talk to strangers. Why you should always trust your mommy. But, evil and death?

In Tarzan, you see blood prints of the leopardess just feet in front of the dead bodies of Tarzan’s parents. Mommy, what are they doing there? Why don’t they get up and help the baby?

Ugh, really! I’m half asleep, and not at all ready for these questions.

I love Disney movies, most of them. So it’s not like I’m going to give them up because I can’t handle the questions and a few emotional (and realistic) scenes. But I now know that I must watch these movies (and all TV, really) with responsibility. Be ready to handle the questions, the emotion in these motion pictures.  Help your children find a way to understand and enjoy it while maintaining their sweet innocence.

Leah

The Magical Age of Three

In just the way my jaw would drop if Madonna or Jennifer Aniston walked into a room, I could see it in his face along with the wonder and excitement in his eyes.  Right there in front of him stood his idol.  Batman.  But, it wasn’t just any Batman…this Batman stood eye-to-eye with my three-year-old.  Without even looking up at me, my son grabbed my hand and squeezed.  “Mama, its Batman!  I want to play with him,” he said in a hushed voice.  “Go ahead, sweetheart.  I know he’d love to play with you.” I nudged my outgoing boy toward the little four-year-old.  My son wouldn’t move.  I’d never seen him like this!  This is the same boy that will walk up to anyone in the street and explain to them that he is Batman and he loves cop cars and ambulances and that he plans on having a peanut butter and jelly for dinner.  He still walks up to complete strangers (in my supervision, of course) and asks, “How was your holiday?”  after hearing my husband and I repeat it during the first week of the New Year. But here, in the front room of Charleston’s Children Museum was a 3’ tall superhero that my son was nervous to approach.  I knelt down to him and reminded him that it was just a little boy just like him who just happened to be dressed head to toe in a costume (why didn’t I think of that!). “Just go up to him and introduce yourself,” I suggested.  “No, you go, mom,” he said as he pushed me towards the little guy.  Of course, I’ll do anything for my baby so I walked right up to Batman and said, “Hi Batman, my son Luke loves Batman too and he he’d really like to play with you.” The little blondie looked up at me and looked over at Luke and smiled.  He handed him a ball, “I’m just trying out these golf balls.” For the next twenty minutes, the two boys ran around the room and tried each different golf ball obstacle course.  Luke ran up to me and told me he had to go potty so I grabbed Zealand’s hand and followed Luke to the potty.  When we returned – gasp! – Batman was nowhere to be found.  By the way, while they were playing together I found out Batman’s actual name was Ollie.  And he looked like an Ollie.  “Where’s Batman?!” Luke asked in a panic.   I replied, “I’m not sure honey.  Maybe he went home.” But that was not an acceptable answer to my preschooler.  We spent the next twenty minutes searching each room with no sign of this mysterious boy.  We were running late to meet friends at CiCi’s Pizza so I suggested maybe Batman went there.  The chances were good that Ollie was not at the Mt. Pleasant CiCi’s, but he could’ve been.  This seemed to work for Luke. So we headed out the front doors of the museum.  As we walked to our car, we could see about a block up, Batman climbing into his mom’s minivan.  They drove west on King.  And just like that, he disappeared into the city.  That was a month ago and we have yet to see little Ollie (or a little Batman) again.  Luke still asks about him and wonders why we can’t just go have a playdate with him.  Finally, I told him that when he starts wearing big boy undies to bed; he will get his very own Batman costume and rock everyone else's world!  

I had just read about this magical age of imagination and Luke is modeling it to a tee.  Whether he’s Batman (and he won’t leave the house without one of his three Batman shirts on), or pulling bad guys over in his cop car (our couch), or taking care of that sick patient in his operating room (our couch); he’s imagining all the possibilities of this world we live in. 

I’ve just started to take advantage of this.  At bedtime, after our books have been read, I tell him stories – big and small – about my life and the things I’ve seen.  From cities to the country, from college to a waterfall I swam by.  Even roller skating in a rink could sound interesting to a three-year-old who has yet to actually see one.   Did you take a cross-country drive with a good college friend?  How about that time you sang a solo in front of your entire town?  Utilize this age!  Utilize their minds.  You can paint mesas and mountains in your child’s mind.  

Do You Lie To Your Kids?

"If you don't eat all your broccoli, you won't grow big like your daddy."  Are there good lies?  Or, rather, are little white lies okay?  On The Today Show yesterday, Ann Curry talked to two parenting experts about just this.  When is it alright to lie to these future adults?  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, editorial director at Parenting.com says 85% of moms in a recent survey have told these little white lies to their children to get out of social obligations.

I am very upfront and truthful with my children.  When we passed an ambulance at the scene of a messy car crash last summer, my son asked what was going on.  I explained to him that two cars crashed and someone maybe got hurt and they were going to go to the hospital where a doctor was sure to make the person feel better.  This was my way of being very direct with him, rather than saying, "Oh everything is just dandy...everyone is fine and life is a bed of roses.  Aren't those lights pretty!"  Though my directness probably led to his obsession and fascination with ambulances and hospital over the next several months.

But I admit to stretching the truth, too.  "Because it's getting dark soon and everyone is going to go home and eat dinner and go to bed."  That's how I explain we're leaving the park.  That's kind of a lie, isn't it?  Not everyone is going home to eat dinner and go to bed.  Some kids may stay longer.  Some kids may get to go out for ice cream.  Or how about a lie versus a probability.  "Get down from there!  If you climb on that you WILL fall and hurt your head and HAVE to go to the emergency room!"  When sure, there is a chance the child will fall and a chance he will hurt his head and yet another chance he might end up in the ER...but it's not a fact.

How about with Santa Claus?  The Easter Bunny?  The Milk Fairy?  The Milk Fairy? Yes, that's a lie I told. It's a fairy I made up.  The milk fairy comes in the middle of the night to take away your sippy of milk and leaves you a really groovy big boy cup of water.  Then every night after that, you drink water from your cup.  No more sippies at night.  Or how about the endless begging and pleading to watch their favorite cartoon which you have grown to despise.  "Oh no, sweetheart, doesn't look like Dora is on right now.  Doesn't look like it's on again until tomorrow.  Let's go paint!"  When secretly it's on now and for the next two hours on every damn cartoon channel and you're willing to go to many lengths to make sure it is not to be seen.

I believe we should be raising our kids to understand honesty and be a good person.  To tell the truth because it feels good and they know they are doing the right thing.  After all, we don't want to teach them to lie which will turn into stealing which will turn into them doing drugs and probably worse.  We don't want them to end up behind bars.  But sometimes the truth is stretched to bring magic into our kids lives or to make ours a little easier in the face of an imminent tantrum.  Of course, we can't forget that these little kids are actually very smart and intuitive too and can often see through our fibs.  What are the little white lies you tell your kids to get through your day?

**If you are a mom-or a person- who has gone through life without telling even a little white lie to help you along, we'd love to hear from you.  Please show us the way!

Creating Holiday Magic - When You Can’t Afford To Buy It

Published December 2, 2011 - Baltimore Sun

This Christmas, less stuff but more memories

Lack of material abundance doesn't have to spoil the holiday

By Leah Speer

Everyone has hopes and dreams for their families. I thought I'd planned everything out perfectly. Up until recently, I thought I'd played by the rules. So how did this middle-class, college-educated, gracious woman go from a comfortable life in a cozy two-story house to a stressful, paycheck-to-paycheck life in an apartment? It didn't seem fair. I know — life isn't always fair. But I fancied that statement more when it didn't apply to my life.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the mechanics of it. My husband and I went from two incomes to one when we went from one child to two in less than two years. Then a sudden job transfer left us scrambling to find a renter for our home in an economy we couldn't possibly sell in. Though we were delighted to be back in the South, we were still two hours away from the other home we rented. We found ourselves struggling to support the difference between what we owe on our mortgages and what our renters were willing to pay. We sold most of what we owned and moved into a two-bedroom apartment.

With December here, I cannot bring myself to believe that I'm not going to be able to provide my two young sons with the most extravagant Christmas imagined. For the second year, they won't be dressed in dapper holiday outfits from The Children's Place, complete with new loafers from Stride Right. They won't be waking up Christmas morning to a train table with Thomas and all of his friends choo-chooing by, next to a battery-powered police car big enough for them both to ride in the grassy backyard we don't have. My family won't be lounging on a leather sectional, sipping cocktails at the bar in the corner of our family room or watching the game on our 73-inch plasma TV. I won't be cooking a feast of turkey, stuffing and sweet potatoes with an array of delectable desserts on the side table smartly lined with holly.

Thankfully, after weeks of soul searching and dutifully tuning in to Oprah's Lifeclass, I've come to the realization that it's OK. I know things will get better. I believe it. We are just going through a tough time, as so many families are. Some worse; some better. What I keep reminding myself is the importance of making sure our boys are happy and feel secure in our home — no matter where it may be right now or how much stuff we have.

I'm now able to see this fanciful Christmas is all in my mind; it's just my expectation of what would make the best holiday season. And that is what is so beautiful: I can still make their experience magical. With a little creativity, I can make our little home a winter wonderland. My boys will buzz with anticipation as we leave cookies and milk out for Santa on Christmas Eve. Christmas morning they will awake to an enchanting site of wrapped gifts piled under the tree.

They don't need to have the most expensive or fastest or biggest toys; they'll only play with half of them anyway! Chocolate from their stocking will stain their brand-new twenty-one dollar button-down, and they'll keep their new shoes on for maybe an hour. My parents can really bond with their grandchildren as they cozy up in our humble living room. Maybe we mix it up this year and have a scrumptious lasagna; hey, fewer dishes to wash means more time to drink wine.

What I am going to remember this holiday season is that it isn't how much money I have or what I buy for them; it's what I do with each moment of each day. You can believe this too. We can turn simple moments into special holiday memories. If we keep a positive outlook and take what we've got and make it good, our children will hold on to the good times. If we can find the happiness and really enjoy these moments, our children will feel it. They will have that special place in their hearts of what Christmas means to them.
Years from now, when we are all in a better place in life, we will be so proud knowing we cowboyed up and delivered a special Christmas — no matter how little we had at the time.

Ultimately, that $40 Rock Star Mickey will be fun for our kiddo for about three days before you are ready to toss the mouse out the window. But memories last forever.