But Daughter was given the movie at horse riding for her birthday. And on horse riding days we get home so very much later... So instead, I just put the movie on for her, and then set about making dinner, and school lunches, and emptying backpacks, and probably a load or two of laundry for good measure. Because deep down, I didn't really want to watch the movie then. And neither did her brother.
So when she emerged sobbing, dripping and snotty from her room, saying: "Something's wrong with Flicka! She won't get up! I think she may be dead. Flicka!" I was, officially, the worst. mother. ever.
Thankfully, the horse lived. Note to self: next time, watch the animal movie with the child.
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Left Coast Crime
2 years ago
Flicka and Old Yeller? Brutal. When I was a kid? Cried for days. Yet note how many people reference those as films that we've all experienced. (So many movies make jokes about watching Old Yeller...you know, like it's going to be this fun family activity, ha ha.) So perhaps it's a cultural milestone kind of thing.
ReplyDeleteBut you were there with hugs, which makes you an AWESOME mom.
And I remember feeling like a total jerk because in the beginning of Nemo, his mom is eaten, and I was showing it to my three-year-old. But after that, I noticed how MANY Disney movies have the scary stuff. At first, I was all harrumph but then I remembered that, like fairy tales, they give kids a place to deal with unarticulated fears they already have (hat tip, Bruno Bettelheim). So. There's that.
Ink, we watched Nemo in a hotel room in LA on our way back from NZ when Son was a mere 20 months old. And we stood, wide-jawed, as things took an unexpected turn for the worse. It took us a while to recover, and in the days following when we discussed it between ourselves, Hubby and I came belatedly to the same conclusion. I had another moment in Polar Express (well, several with the hobo character), when the train skidded and screeched out of control across a frozen lake. The kids usually handle it better than I do, which probably says something about me and fairy tales, no?
ReplyDeleteBut I do think I managed some maternal redemption in the case of Flicka, as we snuggled under a blanket and watched the painful consequences of being mauled by a mountain lion, together! (Thank goodness the horse lived.)