Next in the series: I am not a Theologian

I have a new theory about the appeal of Scientology. Hopefully it doesn’t cheese Tom Cruise off, but I can’t control what crazy people do.

I had a stress headache  the other day, lingering around my eyes and making things generally uncomfortable. As I was enduring the admittedly mild suffering and making a very boring list of the contributing factors for my headache, I thought that it would be much easier to blame some kind of headache demon or devil for my misery. And it’s not just me: humanity loves having a scapegoat. The trouble is, at least for the more reserved branches of Christianity, the idea of demonic afflictions went from literal possession to metaphor. Especially amongst the upper class and white-collar population, there was a shortage of scapegoats that fit their busy modern lifestyles. This is where the Scientologists and their Thetans come in. Now you have a new mythology that gives you a quick easy answer to your dilemmas. Got a headache? Thetan. Feeling anxious about a public speaking commitment? Thetans. It’s a simple answer to the eternal question “who can I blame this on?” And then the church offers you a long, expensive and complicated plan to rid yourself of these horrors. It makes a kind of sense, because if it didn’t cost you a bundle and it wasn’t arduous, you’d have trouble believing that it was helping you.

The other upside of having a scapegoat is that you don’t have to be as introspective as usual. There’s nothing more deflating then tracing the cause of your suffering right back to your own choices again and again. Then again, this is the only way to suss out why you make those choices and to avoid making them again. Ah, free will.

“Stop complaining. It’s just for kids.”

This is the worst argument I have ever heard in support of a terrible piece of art. Why would anyone think it was valid to excuse terrible television or filmmaking just because the target audience is children?

This specific argument came up in reaction to one of my diatribes on the Star Wars prequels. You know-the movies where robots were made to be clumsy and funny? Yeah, those.  Because that is EXACTLY how I would design my robot servants if I was a militaristic empire bent on galactic conquest: thousands of little stooges bumping into each other and making funny little sounds when they have an oopsies.

I will acknowledge that I tend to passionately examine and talk about the art I encounter, and sometimes, people just want to enjoy a movie without hearing a blowhard go on and on about how it could be better. But defending the awful plot holes and terrible character treatments in the Star Wars prequels by saying that they were “written for kids” is insulting. Kids deserve quality filmmaking, even if they can’t fully grasp the elements within the film that make it great. Bad dialogue teaches our kids to speak poorly, and weak characters give them bad role models.

And let’s take a closer look at some other kids movies. The Toy Story movies are “written for kids” but they have a heart and a stirring sense of artistic direction that makes me glad to watch them with the little dude.  Heck, let’s just put all of the Pixar films in the list of great movies. The good folks at Pixar have a real dedication to the art of storytelling, and they celebrate their young audience instead of talking down to them.

Listen, I know it’s nice to enjoy a big, dumb movie without worrying about how much sense it makes. Sometimes you want to turn your brain off and just have some pretty lights flash in front of your eyes.  But don’t defend your fondness for the occasional piece of entertainment candy by claiming it’s “made for kids”.  Kids deserve better. In fact, they deserve to have the best stories told to them: the stories that warm their heart, bolster their courage, foster their sense of compassion, and make them feel as wonderful as we think they are.

The ghost of bedtimes past

I’m not usually the  bedtime guy. After being with me all day, Max wants 100% mom time, from the moment she walks in the door until the lights go off at night, so she gets the lion’s share of bedtimes. But I try to do one or two a week. You would think I would be gung-ho and enthusiastic to do bedtime when it’s my shift, but there’s some small sense of dread that shows up instead.

A part of it is the little dude’s reaction to finding out I’m the bedtime guy that night. When he’s really tired, a great caterwauling shrieks out of his small body, assaulting the ears and emotions of both my wife and me. I figured out a few weeks ago that the misery only lasts until we start heading upstairs, and at that point, he accepts that this is inevitable and the tears magically vanish. So that’s not the main issue.

And the actual bedtime routine is pretty nice and easy. Tonight it took 40 minutes from tearful ascent to fully asleep. During that time, we read 4 books together while he ate his bedtime snack. He cheerfully brushed his teeth, and that used to be a battle just a few months ago, so there’s another sign of his mom’s great parenting skills. If it had  been left to me, the boy would have very fuzzy teeth. After brushing his teeth and giving his face a wipe, we went back into his room, and he happily turned off the light and snuggled into bed. After 5 minutes of lying in the dark beside him, he fell fast asleep. So when you look at it, there’s nothing unpleasant about the routine itself.

I suspect that the majority of my bedtime avoidance is rooted in memories of previous bad nights. There was a time where the very mention of bed time would lead to an unstoppable howling from a boy who would actively resist all attempts to put on pajamas. And when he was still in his crib, the battle to lull him to sleep and keep him asleep made me a nervous wreck. I was perpetually on edge, desperately hoping that he wouldn’t wake up after bedtime. I do not fondly remember those times.

So, long story short: the young man is wonderful and  pretty good at going to bed, and I have to remember that. On an unrelated note, we measured his height today and he’s 41 inches tall. Holy moley. He is more than half my height.