Has anyone every seen the Disney movie, Up? If you haven't, then you won't want to read the rest of my post.
We were watching it together as a family the other day never suspecting how truly scary it is for kids. Within the first couple of minutes two cute kids are introduced and hang out and end up getting married to discover that they can't have kids. Eva was very upset by the whole concept that some people can't have babies. She was very distressed, and Dave explained that some people can't have babies, but they share their love in different ways. Not comforted by the response, but accepting it as truth, we kept watching the movie.
During the next part of the show, this great lady that the man loves so much gets sick and dies. Eva asked Dave again why she died. Dave explained that sometimes people get sick and die. He then keeps explaining that everyone dies at some point in their lives. Eva looks up at him and asks "Even YOU? Are you going to die Dad?" Dave looks around for help and I carefully keep my attention on my book. He answers honestly that yes, some day he's gonna die. Eva looks back and the show and then BURSTS out sobbing!! Big sobs that shake her whole body and all she can get out is, "I DON'T WANT YOU TO DIE! PLEASE DON'T DIE DADDY!" Even though we didn't want to make any promises that we can't keep, we ended up reassuring her that Dad isn't going to die for a really really long time. After a few more minutes, she settled down for the rest of the movie.
We thought we were out of the woods with emotional trauma this Christmas season at least, but then we took a trip down memory lane and watched Annie with the kids. Unfortunately for me, I was sitting by Eva and got tagged with the explanation of what an "orphan" is. I explained that sometimes kids loose their Moms and Dads and they don't have anyone to take care of them and that's an orphan. She was very worried and her followup question was, "How do they loose their Mom and Dad?" Once again we touched on the topic of death but this time instead of loosing just Dad, there is a possibility of loosing Mom too...she didn't shed one tear. Didn't phase her in the least. She just said OK and went back to watching her show. Guess who is her favorite parent!! :)
3 comments:
I LOVED Up. Same questions from my kids, but they actually took the explanations a lot better than we did. I cried through the entire first 15 minutes of the movie...harder when I had to explain why they couldn't have kids...why Ellie died...why the boy's father wasn't around, and why a woman answered the phone at his dad's house that wasn't his mom...Why is it kids don't freak out when a bad guy bites the dust, though? When the bad guy tumbles off the wing into the blue with only 3 balloons to help him out, do my kids ask about him plunging to certain death? Nah. They're too busy laughing at the baby birds coughing up slime-covered baseballs.
Annie. I've gotta rent that. It's been DECADES. Literally.
Classic story. I thought that maybe your kids were scared of the characters falling out of the house or something but death is much scarier. Classic. They are so cute. Anton
The Annie explanation is revenge for Teresa abandoning me to explaining sex, kids, families, and death to Eva.
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