Sunday morning soap-box
Posted
April 12, 2008 at
9:13 pm by
Trish
My younger daughter, Ella, is seven years old. A few weeks ago she spent the night at a friend’s house and stayed up late and ate junk food and did all that stuff that usually happens at a sleep-over that makes you sigh and shake your head and tuck her into bed a little earlier the next night. But she also got to watch a movie that was rated suitable for mature audiences, and I have to tell you that’s the bit that worried me the most.
The mother of the friend is a good friend of mine, which complicates things a little. I like that we are all friends, and that our daughters play happily together in the backyard while we gossip on the back porch (sometimes, shhh, we have a glass of wine). On the one hand, we’re good enough friends that I could tell her that I don’t want Ella watching M-rated movies and she’ll be fine with that. But on the other, I don’t want her thinking that I’m questioning her judgment and that this somehow means I’m questioning everything about her. I know how much I worry when someone gives me some slightly negative feedback - I immediately start making a mental list of the zillion other things they must hate about me too.
Perhaps I would not have worried so much about the movie if Ella hadn’t had a nightmare. She told me that she was having a bad dream about the movie she saw, and we (her Dad and I) told her not to be silly, it wasn’t a scary movie, you’re just making excuses to stay up late. In the end she was so over-tired and overwrought that we banished her from the room she shares with her sister and made her sleep in the spare room. But just to reassure ourselves, we checked parentsinmind.com to see what the classification police had to say about the movie. Oh, dear. References to humans having sex with animals. A man kicks a young woman’s head off. A man whips himself on the back and we see bloody slashes.
Yes, we punished her for having a nightmare after she watched an M-rated movie. That has to count as one of our least proud, most imperfect, parenting moments.
In the end I decided not to say anything to my friend about it - what’s done is done - but if Ella is invited to stay over again I’m going to put on my Serious Concerned Mother face and just ask that she limit the viewing choices to the bottom shelf - the one with all the Disney cartoons.
The movie classifications are there for a reason, telling us very clearly that some smart people in a government office somewhere have given the whole matter a great deal of thought and no, this film shouldn’t be seen by seven year olds. Why question it? Why take the chance that our kids might find references to humans having sex with animals a little upsetting instead of hilariously funny?
Tags: childrens-movies, Entertainment, Family, movie-classifications, Parenting, responsible-parenting, sleep-overs, Social Issues |
5 Responses to “Sunday morning soap-box”
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1. Allison J said:
April 12, 2008 @ 9:30 pm
Ooh! That’s a rough one. I have a younger sister with Down Syndrome — her guilty pleasure is movies. She spends a good deal of time at my home and I am always careful of what she watches on TV.
Her view of movies/TV is not far off from a young child, and she takes what she sees on the tube as reality. I don’t think it is inappropriate at all for you to be concerned and voice that to your pal.
Maybe she just didn’t realize — it happens to all of us. I know teachers that have been showing PG movies in their classrooms and have to sprint to the TV when “questionable” material arises.
I’m an adult — and I can’t handle ANY scary movies — even the stupid “Scream” franchise freaks me out, nightmares for days. Just thinking about it now creeps me out. Perhaps your friend’s daughter isn’t affected by this — some kids aren’t. But I for one agree with your concerns 100%!
2. Rita. said:
April 13, 2008 @ 8:30 am
I think that a lot of parents these days are just very lax with what their kids see. When my son was in 4th grade, I was horrified by how many of his friends had seen genuine HORROR movies (like in the Friday the 13th/Nightmare on Elm Street variety).
I tend to be lax in other ways with what my kids watch. I tailor my censorship according to their personalities. For example, my 9 y.o. is fine watching action movies with some violence in them–the Bourne movies, Spiderman, and most Jackie Chan movies (but not Rumble in the Bronx, we had to turn that one off, we had forgotten that that one was different). But, she can’t stand anything violent that happens to animals. If there is a scene with a dog being kicked or anything like that, she just freaks out.
Personally, I don’t care much about language, so that’s not on my radar. Sex and graphic violence are what I screen for.
But, even with our own guidelines, if my kids are going to watch something that’s not rated G and other kids are over, I call the parents to ask specifically for permission. The Blues Brothers had language, so I needed to call and ask the parent of a 13 year-old for permission to have her kid watch it at our house (and she said it was fine).
I wish other parents would just do that, just pick up the phone and call for permission before assuming that if it’s fine for their kid, it’s fine for everyone. And, I would say something to that mother about it, casually. I’d just ask if her daughter had any reaction to the movie they saw, because Ella had nightmares from it, so from now on you think she ought to stick with G-rated movies unless you’ve pre-screened them. I think something like that, you can approach it in a non-accusing manner and then it’s out there and the mom knows how you feel about it.
Everyone makes mistakes, lol. We found out that Rumble in the Bronx was inappropriate the hard way. We’d seen it ages before and just thought the R rating was for language. But, no, it’s really very rough and my poor middle one (she was only about 6 at the time, too) was just horrified, she was bawling, “Those men are HURTING Jackie Chan mommy, he’s BLEEDING, Jackie Chan is BLEEDING!” So, I like to think we’re not alone in having a movie play halfway through before realizing we’ve made a grave error. Maybe those parents did the same, maybe they just didn’t realize it was SO bad?
I’ve got to know though, what was the movie? Some of those scenes sound familiar.
3. Allison G said:
April 14, 2008 @ 10:36 am
When I was 11 in the 5th grade, I went to a sleepover, and the mom there let us watch “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Drag queens, sex scenes, Rocky in slave bondage. Geez.
Her mom only asked if we were allowed to watch R-rated movies, and Rita, my parents had the same guidelines you do. But I know she wouldn’t have let me watch that one.
My sister called me last summer and asked if I had seen that horror movie “Hostel” and I said yes. Then she asked me if she thinks her 7 year old could watch it and I FREAKED out on her. Then she laughed and said “That’s what I thought. My neighbor let her 8 and 6 year old watch it the other day!” And apparently they watched enough of it that they were describing everything in detail to my 7 and 4 year old nephews. Needless to say she threw those kids out of her house for the week.
I really don’t know why parents let their kids see some of the movies they do. Cursing and fighting, whatever. Sex and bloodshed, what the Hell??????????
4. Allison J said:
April 14, 2008 @ 2:36 pm
[quote comment="155638"]
I really don’t know why parents let their kids see some of the movies they do. Cursing and fighting, whatever. Sex and bloodshed, what the Hell??????????[/quote]
Amen! While in a third grade class this year I had an 8 year old tell me that when he gets older he wants to remake his two favorite movies — Scarface and the Punisher!!! Apparently he watches them all the time with his mother.
5. Grandma frm Ks. said:
April 18, 2008 @ 1:06 pm
Hi Ladies, I agree with you, I have some teen age grandchildren that will say “no thanks, my parents would not approve” so just keep it up, kids do pay attention (sometimes more than we think) and they hear a whole lot more than we think,I’m pretty sure they have seen, done or said things not approves of , but they still know, you girls sound like some great mommas, have a great week end,