Holding Onto Fantasy

Once upon a time, my children were only allowed to watch videos — no TV — about construction equipment and wild animals, plus occasional animated Disney cartoon classics.

I think that explains why they prematurely began waging a gang war against me for the right to watch their own definition of classics, like Scar Face, The Godfather and Departed, to name a few of the exceptionally violent, explicit movies that good mothers don’t let their kids watch, right?

But with so many and more important battles to fight, I pretty much waved a white flag over the cinematic ones, especially when it came to my second child. Because as moms of more than one know, it’s impossible to protect your younger children from the older sibling’s lifestyle. (A big fear about having a second child was how I would keep the baby away from the four-year-old’s wall-to-wall lego carpet. A choking accident should have been the least of my worries).

So it’s been really adorable to see my kids renting Pixar and Sony computer animated movies, like Bolt and Up and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and then insisting that I watch along because… because they’re so cute!

Of course I know that illegal substances have been giving teenagers a reason to want to giggle their way through movies like Where the Wild Things Are for years. But my kids’ current love of sweet, heart-warming, sex-and-violent-free movies is legit, I swear.

This phenomenon is not only related to the high quality CGI and storytelling in many of today’s “family movies.” I believe for my oldest in particular, there’s a little voice in the back of his big, dumb, confused head that’s telling him his childhood is wrapping up. And he’s sad and scared to Scarface-death.

We’d both like to hang onto his cartoon years a little longer. Soon I won’t be there to say ‘no’ about movies or anything else. He’ll be fine in college, though, because I didn’t let him watch Animal House, right?