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.

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.

As a guy, I have no experience in dealing with long-term, complicated emotional reactions. For a man, most emotions are created by a single moment of stress and are dealt with. Problem happens, man thinks about problem,man bashes head against problem until it goes away. It’s not elegant, but it does the trick.

But this new category of emotion, the unresolvable kind, is quite a different story. The signs of the little dude’s increasing maturity and the looming inevitable separation that will happen as he gets older is the thing I’m still dealing with. Today, the trigger was the idea of his eating lunch at school. For some reason, I was saddened by the notion that we wouldn’t be eating lunch together for those 3 days a week. Lunch, for the love of pete. A couple of weeks ago we watched Toy Story 3 as a family, and it was a fantastic experience, but when Andy drove off for college and waved goodbye to his toys, I was snuffling and trying to keep it together. There’s nothing wrong with a dude crying, but on the flip side, I really didn’t want to explain why daddy was sad during a very happy family moment.

So I guess the key is that you end up dealing with the separation sadness one step at a time. You acclimatize to each change with some moping or overeating or weeping, whatever gets you by, and you put your brave face back on and greet them with a cheery smile when they come back.So bring on the 3 full days at preschool next year, then 5 days a week at kindergarten the year after that, and on and on.