But never warned about too much mythology. Quote of the day: "Oh, I wish the Goddess of Death would not go around killing people. Why does there have to be a Goddess of Death?"
One thing I guess I sort of do, without having some specific plan about it, is feed my kid's imagination so that corporate-sponsored storylines can't take too much hold over it.
This hasn't worked with Star Wars but because Star Wars took hold of my imagination as a child, I suppose I just go with it.
My kid is obsessed with Star Wars. Note, unlike this story about Star Wars taking over the mind of young boys my child is not a boy. Nor was I a boy. Why this person thinks Star Wars would only interest boys is anyone's guess. The usual fucked up sexism. Star Wars has some technology in it. We all know women have nothing to do with technology. Why, if it wasn't for men we'd all be living in caves, right? Also we know that girls and boys are so fundamentally different that if a boy is interested in something it is impossible that a girl would also be interested in it. So if you parent a boy and your boy likes something (say, Legos) why, this is a sign of your boy's masculinity, no? Of course, girls could not possibly like legos because then legos would cease to reassure parents of boys that their kid is a 'real boy' and will grow up to do well in math so that they can be architects.
The woman who wrote the story hypothesizes that Star Wars love is about marketing and toys. But my child was immediately obsessed with Star Wars simply upon hearing the story--attached to a game played with sticks that were 'light savers.' Every stick thereby became a 'light saver' and she has yet to have any Star Wars toys. (She also loves Legos.) Of course, seeing the incredible light saber on the screen sent her to the moon. And it sent me to the moon when I was a little kid also. Those things are fucking cool.
Anyway, I'm not trying to keep my kid from liking princesses. It's more that my theory about princesses is that they are good stories badly told by Disney. So, to prevent Disney from commanding all storylines, I have sought other stories--and even other versions of Cinderella.
I'm not saying this is a conscious thing. I think what I unconsciously do is just remember all the powerful moments of my own childhood and then I kind of find the things that prompted those moments and give them to my child. So I'm not against Disney movies in some vehement way. I simply remember my childhood as this kind of trippy fantasy world and now I have a kid who is so much like me in this way. Bad stuff happened to me as a child so I escaped into fantasy. But also, I was able to really live in imaginative worlds that were spin offs of stories I'd read. She also does this and so it's hard not to keep giving her all the stuff I was into.
Myths were a very big deal to me and my sister. We loved myths. So I thought it would be OK to read my child this book D'Aulaire's Book of Mythology for Children.
And I was charmed by the fact that the Barbies she has (I didn't buy them for her...Grandma!) turned into Persephone and Demeter and the Goddess of Fire. (There is no story about the Goddess of Fire. Where the Goddess of Death and Fire came from is anyone's guess.) Until she started becoming the last believer in Greek Gods and Goddesses. I'm not sure we're ready just yet to build a temple of Hera in the backyard.
Recent Comments