I Broke My Kid
You can imagine that we watch a lot of movies around our house.
At the tender age of four and a half, my boy is a big Harpo Marx fan. He used to dig Chico, but Harpo put a frog in his hat in "Monkey Business" so that trumps anything Chico could ever do. Sullivan has seen "To Kill a Mockingbird", and compared several movie versions of "Alice in Wonderland" with the book (He likes the book best, but thinks the Disney version moves better than the other live action versions that more closely adhere to the book. I can't disagree with him.) and bravely watched "The Witches" and all four Harry Potter movies. He handles them well and he doesn't get overly emotional about them, he just likes to act them out. "Babe" didn't bother him at all. So I thought it would be safe to break out "E.T.".
There are 3 movies that my family claims made me cry so much they considered never taking me to a movie ever again. In no particular order, "The Fox and the Hound", "Savannah Smiles" and "E.T." are the films that sent me into incredible crying frenzies. I remember crying. I remember why, too. I don't remember it being excessive. To me, these movies warranted a certain amount of tears. When I was much older I remember being completely shredded while reading "Where the Red Fern Grows" and have since sworn off the "Boy and his dog" genre. Damn.
So, I figured Sul could totally handle this poorly scored alien flick. (Boy that John William's score is just so heavy handed and intrusive! Yuck!) Things were going really well until E.T. died.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Such heaving sobs! He was consumed by grief. I had to pause the movie and for a few minutes he refused to watch the rest of this nasty alien snuff film that I had made him watch. He couldn't speak. He thrashed around in agony and refused to accept any comfort. Finally I just turned the movie back on to show him that E.T. was okay and was going to go home. Things were better, then Elliot and E.T. had to say good bye. He dissolved. It doesn't help that his mama is a total sap bawling along with him. Man, watching movies with me is embarassing.
It took a good hour to get Sullivan to talk about it. He decided to draw a picture of his feelings and then he hid the picture from me because those feelings are private.
Flash forward to today when I was sucking down popsicles in bed (bad sore throat) and we decided to watch "Goblet of Fire" together and I start bawling when Harry brings the lifeless body of his schoolmate back to his father after an encounter with Voldemort. Well, that's just tragic to me that a 14 year old boy would have to carry that kind of burden. Yeah, I take this shit way too seriously. So, I'm sobbing and blowing my nose when I feel this little hand on my shoulder...
"Mom, remember when I cried at E.T.? It's just a movie, Mom. It's okay to cry. Do you want to draw a picture?"
Then he went back to pretending to be Voldemort by mimicking the way Ralph Feinnes held his wand and caressed his bald head. Maybe that was the problem... there was no clear cut evil guy in E.T. My boy needs a bad guy to emulate or he might get emotionally involved.
Apparently, that's scary.
At the tender age of four and a half, my boy is a big Harpo Marx fan. He used to dig Chico, but Harpo put a frog in his hat in "Monkey Business" so that trumps anything Chico could ever do. Sullivan has seen "To Kill a Mockingbird", and compared several movie versions of "Alice in Wonderland" with the book (He likes the book best, but thinks the Disney version moves better than the other live action versions that more closely adhere to the book. I can't disagree with him.) and bravely watched "The Witches" and all four Harry Potter movies. He handles them well and he doesn't get overly emotional about them, he just likes to act them out. "Babe" didn't bother him at all. So I thought it would be safe to break out "E.T.".
There are 3 movies that my family claims made me cry so much they considered never taking me to a movie ever again. In no particular order, "The Fox and the Hound", "Savannah Smiles" and "E.T." are the films that sent me into incredible crying frenzies. I remember crying. I remember why, too. I don't remember it being excessive. To me, these movies warranted a certain amount of tears. When I was much older I remember being completely shredded while reading "Where the Red Fern Grows" and have since sworn off the "Boy and his dog" genre. Damn.
So, I figured Sul could totally handle this poorly scored alien flick. (Boy that John William's score is just so heavy handed and intrusive! Yuck!) Things were going really well until E.T. died.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Such heaving sobs! He was consumed by grief. I had to pause the movie and for a few minutes he refused to watch the rest of this nasty alien snuff film that I had made him watch. He couldn't speak. He thrashed around in agony and refused to accept any comfort. Finally I just turned the movie back on to show him that E.T. was okay and was going to go home. Things were better, then Elliot and E.T. had to say good bye. He dissolved. It doesn't help that his mama is a total sap bawling along with him. Man, watching movies with me is embarassing.
It took a good hour to get Sullivan to talk about it. He decided to draw a picture of his feelings and then he hid the picture from me because those feelings are private.
Flash forward to today when I was sucking down popsicles in bed (bad sore throat) and we decided to watch "Goblet of Fire" together and I start bawling when Harry brings the lifeless body of his schoolmate back to his father after an encounter with Voldemort. Well, that's just tragic to me that a 14 year old boy would have to carry that kind of burden. Yeah, I take this shit way too seriously. So, I'm sobbing and blowing my nose when I feel this little hand on my shoulder...
"Mom, remember when I cried at E.T.? It's just a movie, Mom. It's okay to cry. Do you want to draw a picture?"
Then he went back to pretending to be Voldemort by mimicking the way Ralph Feinnes held his wand and caressed his bald head. Maybe that was the problem... there was no clear cut evil guy in E.T. My boy needs a bad guy to emulate or he might get emotionally involved.
Apparently, that's scary.
posted by Bree O'Connor at 12:17 AM
4 Comments:
Oddly enough, today is the Savannah Smiles girl's 31st birthday, or would be if she hadn't OD'd 9 years ago.
No!
Dude. That is depressing. I'll never be able to watch that movie again.
Which is probably for the best considering the inevitable tear-fest.
Oh, and don't forget "The Outsiders". I used to break that one out for my unsuspecting slumber party guests. Cute boys dying? What could be more tragic than that?
Stay gold, Pony Boy.
Yeah, it's all over now. This is the root of all that probing the therapist will do 30 years from now. And he'll blame it all on you. We only children are notorious for that, you know.
Just kidding. Our reputation is not entirely deserved.
Probe away! At the very least, his memoirs detailing his troubled youth with weird parents will be interesting and maybe even funny. He will find himself as part of a generation of kids raised by neurotic parents who desperately wanted to "do it right" and ended up screwing the whole thing up horribly. In 20 years my parenting style based on theories of attachment will be considered abusive and the only thing I will have done right is make him cry over deceased aliens.
I bet ya.
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