On the hunt for answers
We've been watching a lot of Bambi lately. A LOT. Almost every day. I think Bobbin's trying to sort through the complex concepts of violence, death, and loss and the way she's trying to do this is by watching the movie over and over and over and over again, and processing the information in her head. And asking a lot of questions.
Question 1: Why are the deer running; who's coming?
Answer: The deer are running because they are afraid of the hunters.
Question 2: What are the hunters; are they (pointing to the animated images of crows on the TV) the hunters?
Answer: The hunters are people. They are in the forest. They are chasing the deer. They make a lot of loud noises and it scares the animals.
Question 3: Where did Bambi's Mommy go?
Answer: Well, Bambi's Mommy was really worried about Bambi because he's so young. She wanted to make sure he ran away and hid somewhere safe. So she stayed behind in the meadow to make sure he escaped. And now she's gone. She died, honey.
Question 4: How did she died?
Answer: Well, I think she got really badly hurt from the hunter's guns. So hurt that she couldn't get up anymore. So hurt that a doctor couldn't have helped her. And when someone gets so hurt that they can't be made better, sometimes they die. But Bambi will always remember his Mommy, and remember how much she loved him. And his Mommy will watch over him even though she's not with him anymore.
Question 5: Why are the mean dogs chasing Feline?
Answer: Those are the hunters' dogs. The hunters trained them to be able to find other animals. The dogs work for the hunters. They find the animals the hunters are looking for and then they keep them there until the hunters can get there.
Question 6: What happened to Bambi? How he got hurt?
Answer: Well, Bambi was running to get away from the hunters, and when he went to jump across the canyon the hunters saw him, and they shot their gun, and the bullet hit his leg and he got really really hurt.
Question 7: Why the hunters hurt Bambi? Why the hunters have guns?
Answer: Well, sometimes people have to hunt for their food. That's how they live. They have to find food in the forest. Hunters find food. that's how they're able to feed their families and live. That doesn't make them bad. It's what they need to do. Some people don't hunt for food. They hunt for other reasons. I don't think that's ok. I would never do that. Neither would Daddy. we don't need to hunt for our food. We can get our food from farms and gardens and grocery stores. And Guns are very very very very dangerous. We don't touch guns. Guns are really really dangerous. They can hurt you so bad that you might not get better.
Question 8: And then you could die?
Answer: Yes, you could.
Ok. So she's processing all of that, and I think she's getting it. But I didn't realize that there was one slight little problem. There's a boy in her class named Hunter. You know where I'm going, don't you... Well, thankfully I don't think she's had any sort of conversation or confrontation with him about why he killed Bambi's mother. But it has been on her mind, because when I picked her up from school, I asked her who the little boy was that said goodbye to her and gave her a kiss and a hug, and she replied "Hunter" (whom I had met when I first started taking her to school; but had forgotten his name). And then she said "But he's not mean like the pretend hunters in Bambi".
So we had a conversation about how her friend's name is Hunter, but that the hunters in Bambi were actually called hunters because what they do is hunt. They hunt, so they are hunters. That's different than having the name "Hunter". I don't know if I needed to bother, but I did know that I didn't want to take the chance that I'd get some weird note from school about how Bobbin was accusing one of her classmates of killing deer and starting forest fires. It still may happen, but at least I'll have seen it coming and will be able to explain why :-)
The other movie we've been watching is 101 Dalmations. Yes, another lovely tale of cruelty to animals. All implied, never seen, much like Bambi. But that's all that is needed to get a 3-year-old's mind turning. Thankfully she has not yet pieced together what it is that Cruella deVille is planning on doing with the puppies. She is however, fascinated by her meanness. She looks mean, she sounds mean, and she steals puppies. Evil incarnate already, even without knowing her intent for those puppies. But even that is not the primary focus of Bobbin's fascination with Cruella. No, what really has captured Bobbin's attention are the cigarettes that Cruella smokes. "Why she's putting fire in her mouth?" Bobbin asks. She asks this of real people she observes smoking as well.
So far my answer has been this: She's smoking a cigarette. Cigarettes are really yucky and very very dangerous. Cigarettes can make you very very sick. They can make it so your body can't breathe, and you cough all the time, and you can even get so sick you have to go to the hospital and stay there for a long long time. and sometimes you can get so sick you can't get better.
To which, of course, she asks " And then you can die?"
To which of course I anaswer "Yes, yes you could".
This lesson too, appears to be sinking in well. Whenever Bobbin sees a cigarette butt on the sidewalk or street she stops, points at it and yells "OOOH YUCKY YUCKY! THAT's BAD! SO YUCKY! ICK! YUCK! PTOOEEEY! THAT CAN MAKE YOU SICK!"
Neither Tim nor I smoke. Tim used to but quit before we got married. I've never so much as tried it. At all. But of course, we do know people who do smoke. Some of whom are very close to us. And so Bobbin's still trying to process why someone would willingly do something that was so bad for them that it could make them so sick they would die. And, well, that's a tough one. My answer there is that he or she has been smoking for a very long time, and they know it is bad and not healthy and could make them sick, but sometimes it can be very very hard to stop doing something even when you know it is bad for you and can make you sick. And what we should do is let those people know that we really love them, and we want them to stop smoking, because we don't want them to get sick. And maybe if they know that it will help them to stop doing it".
So at this point I can say that we've done the three-year-old version of
- the Sex talk (Babies come from Mommies' tummies. When a mommy and daddy decide they want to have a baby, then the baby grows in mommy's tummy and then when it's big enough they go to the hospital and the baby is born)
- the smoking talk
- the drinking talk (Tim and I enjoy wine at dinner and so we've had the conversation about how that is just for grownups, and even then grownups should only drink a little bit, because too much can make your body sick, just like too much medicine or too much of anything can make your body sick),
- the gun talk.
I think we've covered a few bases for a while.
Good lord, this parenting stuff is hard.
Comments
Keep it coming...I'm taking tips from you.....lol.
Posted by Lisa on November 14, 2008 6:19 AM.