The combined force of the holiday, the family, and the pending inevitability that Someone Else (aka: my parents) would show it to him first, we did it. We showed The Little Man Star Wars.
Parts were scary. Parts we had to explain. At one point, he asked to turn it off for a little while. It made me feel vindicated, in a way, to have to my point made about why we had wanted to wait in the first place. But at least now he knows, he’s been there, and we can move on. But there are some things that remain difficult to understand.
“Mommy, why did Darth Vader kill Obi Wan?”
“Well, they had a big disagreement and fought over it… but Obi Wan really didn’t die, he became one with the force… you know it’s all pretend anyway.”
“But why did they fight?”
“Sometimes that’s how people handle disagreements, in movies and in life.”
Quiet. Thinking. Squirming.
“You know that Mommy and Daddy believe that fighting is not the best way to solve problems.”
“Why?”
“Well, we just think that fighting hurts people and makes them want to fight back.”
“Then why do people fight?”
“Because… it’s what they know. It’s harder to think of other things to do when you’re upset. It’s easier to just fight.”
Pause.
(Tentative, in a whisper.) “Mommy, when you yell at me, it’s just like fighting.”
Quick, deep breath. Wipe away sudden tears.
“You’re right Will, it is. Let’s work together so that I can learn a better way, too.”
liprap | 29-Nov-08 at 2:22 pm | Permalink
Funny, the little guy wasn’t interested in watching “Star Wars” Ep IV with us at all. Granted, it was competing with “Kung Fu Panda” on another TV in my parents’ house…but Dan, my mom, and I sat and watched it and talked about how George Lucas missed the point with his prequels. It wasn’t about the effects necessarily with the earlier-made films, it was about the story, the characters, the acting.
Jamie | 30-Nov-08 at 2:46 pm | Permalink
Oh man. Smart little guy. Doesn’t it just squeeze your heart when they figure things out like that?
Holly | 30-Nov-08 at 7:21 pm | Permalink
Liprap: Maybe Kung Fu Panda is the more popular playground talk? My parents tried to take Will to see it and ended up leaving toward the end of the movie (apparently one of the characters completely freaked him out?) One of his classmates saw Star Wars last year and he has been going crazy about seeing the movie for about 2 years. Pretty anticlimactic, I would have thought? Wrong.
Jamie: You pretty much nailed it!