Parenting FAIL
DISCLAIMER: If you haven't seen Marley and Me and have no idea what the movie is about and plan to see it in the future, please don't read any further. There are spoilers!
So Friday night, after dinner, Leda asked if we could watch a movie. We said, sure, let's see what is available On Demand...Look, Marley and Me is available and we haven't seen it yet, would you like to see that. Leda would LOVE to see the movie of the book she got for Christmas (only her Marley book from Christmas isn't quite the same as the book the movie is actually based on, but what the hay, it's a PG movie, doesn't look to be too bad and isn't a movie that Brock and I have seen a billion times already!
Here's the first failure of the night. I read the book the movie is based on (it's is a good book, I recommend it!) so I am quite aware of what happens at the end of the movie. Not even thinking that this is a bad idea! That was the first failure!
Anyhoo, we get the movie started and we are all quite enjoying it. About, oh, maybe a half hour in or so, there's a montage while the lead character voices over about all the things they did in a year...a quick 5 minute review of a year to get you up to speed for the next scene. During this montage, there is mention of Disney World. This is a place we have not as of yet told Leda about. She is clueless to the existence of Disney World. She's totally aware of Disney, but not that there is a place that you can go visit and spend lots more of our hard earned dollars on Disney paraphernalia. And we are quite happy about that for the moment. Anyway, so Disney World is mentioned. Leda perks up immediately and says, "Disney World? Mommy, what is Disney World?" Oh yeah, we are screwed now!
The movie is moving along, it's got some good parts. It's not as good as the book, but no movie is ever as good as the book for me...some come close, but, I just am picky about movies that are made from books...I happen to believe that no one could make a movie better than my imagination. I'm a snob that way! Anyway, so the movie is okay for the younger family member...no real bad language (I think there was one bad word in the whole movie) and no real 'adult situations' that embarrassed the kid's parents!
But, then, there was the end. See, here's the spoiler, Marley gets old and sick and well, he dies. Thus leaving the three Yates blubbering idiots! Brock was the first to start crying, me following pretty soon after and Leda, well, Leda became hysterical by the closing credits. This was the complete failure! I knew exactly what happens at the end of the movie and didn't THINK that this would throw my child into hysterics when I KNEW it would cause her father and I to cry! So, for 20 minutes I tried to console and calm down my poor child who was just beside herself that Marley had to die at the end.
I finally got her to stop crying, "But, Marley dies!!" over and over again and got her to focus on some good stuff and for a good 5 minutes she and I giggled about all the funny stuff in the movie. Of course, she followed up with, "But, then Marley dies" and lots more crying for the next 10 minutes! I finally got her to calm down enough to fall asleep.
Her father and I braced ourselves for the kid to come in to our bed at some point during the night after nightmares of poor old dogs meeting their maker, but she made it through the night without any nightmares and the next day was just talking about the funny stuff in the movie, never mentioning about how Marley dies at the end. So maybe it wasn't as bad as we thought, but I will definitely think twice before I let the kid watch a movie where a beloved pet dies at the end!
So Friday night, after dinner, Leda asked if we could watch a movie. We said, sure, let's see what is available On Demand...Look, Marley and Me is available and we haven't seen it yet, would you like to see that. Leda would LOVE to see the movie of the book she got for Christmas (only her Marley book from Christmas isn't quite the same as the book the movie is actually based on, but what the hay, it's a PG movie, doesn't look to be too bad and isn't a movie that Brock and I have seen a billion times already!
Here's the first failure of the night. I read the book the movie is based on (it's is a good book, I recommend it!) so I am quite aware of what happens at the end of the movie. Not even thinking that this is a bad idea! That was the first failure!
Anyhoo, we get the movie started and we are all quite enjoying it. About, oh, maybe a half hour in or so, there's a montage while the lead character voices over about all the things they did in a year...a quick 5 minute review of a year to get you up to speed for the next scene. During this montage, there is mention of Disney World. This is a place we have not as of yet told Leda about. She is clueless to the existence of Disney World. She's totally aware of Disney, but not that there is a place that you can go visit and spend lots more of our hard earned dollars on Disney paraphernalia. And we are quite happy about that for the moment. Anyway, so Disney World is mentioned. Leda perks up immediately and says, "Disney World? Mommy, what is Disney World?" Oh yeah, we are screwed now!
The movie is moving along, it's got some good parts. It's not as good as the book, but no movie is ever as good as the book for me...some come close, but, I just am picky about movies that are made from books...I happen to believe that no one could make a movie better than my imagination. I'm a snob that way! Anyway, so the movie is okay for the younger family member...no real bad language (I think there was one bad word in the whole movie) and no real 'adult situations' that embarrassed the kid's parents!
But, then, there was the end. See, here's the spoiler, Marley gets old and sick and well, he dies. Thus leaving the three Yates blubbering idiots! Brock was the first to start crying, me following pretty soon after and Leda, well, Leda became hysterical by the closing credits. This was the complete failure! I knew exactly what happens at the end of the movie and didn't THINK that this would throw my child into hysterics when I KNEW it would cause her father and I to cry! So, for 20 minutes I tried to console and calm down my poor child who was just beside herself that Marley had to die at the end.
I finally got her to stop crying, "But, Marley dies!!" over and over again and got her to focus on some good stuff and for a good 5 minutes she and I giggled about all the funny stuff in the movie. Of course, she followed up with, "But, then Marley dies" and lots more crying for the next 10 minutes! I finally got her to calm down enough to fall asleep.
Her father and I braced ourselves for the kid to come in to our bed at some point during the night after nightmares of poor old dogs meeting their maker, but she made it through the night without any nightmares and the next day was just talking about the funny stuff in the movie, never mentioning about how Marley dies at the end. So maybe it wasn't as bad as we thought, but I will definitely think twice before I let the kid watch a movie where a beloved pet dies at the end!
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