When your kid loses his or her first tooth, it's one of those magical/horrifying moments in your parental life (magical in the sense that your baby is growing up, and horrifying for essentially the same reason). For Layla, the loss of her first tooth coincided neatly with a Tinkerbell fascination, so by the time the last root on that tiny little pearl of a tooth finally gave, she was well-informed of all things Tooth Fairy and was awaiting the arrival of a magical winged friend with the same level of sweaty, giddy anticipation that I usually reserve for awards shows hosted by Tina Fey. In other words, to say she was excited would be a massive understatement.
Wanting to make the most of this milestone moment, we really did up the whole tooth fairy charade. Not only did Layla get $10 for her first tooth (an absolutely ridiculous amount I know, despite all of the cost of living/tooth fairy inflation pseudo-rationalizations that I tried to make for myself at the time), she also got a small, gift-wrapped present, and a personalized note from the Tooth Fairy herself (that was typed because Layla is smart enough to recognize our handwriting) praising her for taking good care of her teeth and for being an all-around amazing kid. The whole thing was topped off with a generous sprinkling of glitter on her bedside table, to prove that not only had the the tooth fairy graced Layla with her presence, but that she was every bit as sparkly and wonderful as Disney movies and a child's overactive imagination (mine) had led her to believe.
And then, because life is great at throwing curve balls when you never see it coming, Layla proceeded to lose nine teeth. In six months. Suddenly I realized that I needed to rethink my math (no more inflation excuses) and to rethink this whole Tooth Fairy operation. And fast.
Now before you think that I'm just some cantankerous jerk who hates using the power of creativity and imagination (and presents) to make their child deliriously happy, hear me out:
I'll begin with some basic math: The average six to seven-year old has about twenty teeth. Twenty teeth times ten dollars a tooth comes out to $200. It's not that I'm cheap or anything, but at that rate, the Tooth Fairy was bound to end bankrupt and living under a bridge, hooked on Pixie Dust (pun intended and relished). Why this math didn't occur to me when I was deciding that it was a good idea to shell out ten bucks for her first tooth, I will never know. By by the time I figured it out, I consoled my inner-Scrooge McDuck by assuring myself that I had some time before the next tooth fell out to back-pedal a bit on the whole Tooth Fairy deal, giving us room to subtly scale back on the grandness of the whole thing.But of course, this didn't end up working out the way that I had planned (see above, re: massive number of teeth lost in record time). In fact, I scaled back so fast that I actually completely forgot to put anything out one night around tooth #7, sending Josh in to Layla's room at 6 AM under the guise of delivering an early good morning kiss as I tossed a few dollars on her night stand, praying she wouldn't notice (she didn't).
In fact, I slowly began to realize that Layla wasn't noticing any of the scaling back that we were doing. She was happily collecting her dollars, more concerned about the Build-A-Bear she was saving up for than the telltale, glitter-filled signs of the Tooth Fairy. Best of all, when all was said and done, the part she liked best was the sound and feeling of pulling her own teeth out (shudder). She said nothing about presents, or lack thereof.
Honestly, sometimes I don't think we give kids enough credit. Deep down, kids are wonderfully simple creatures who are happy with next to nothing (which is why every kid since the dawn of time has always had more fun with the boxes that their Christmas presents came than the actual presents). But because we want our kids to have a great life and also need interesting things to post on Facebook (I'm convinced that Pinterest exists precisely for these reasons), we can get to a point where we feel the need to constantly to overdue every little thing (I know I can). But there's a thin line (a very, very thin line) between making a fun, creative gesture that your kid will have fond memories of forever and setting your kids on the path to spoiled douche-baggery because they have no concept of managing their expectations.
Okay, it's entirely possible that I am thinking way too much into this way too soon. You should make a production out of everything if it's what you really want to do, but we should remember that kids don't necessarily require extravagance to be happy.
If all else fails, just give 'em an empty box if you don't believe me. You will rock their world.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Mindy Kaling Is My New-Found Hero
I’ve barely slept all week and it’s all Mindy Kaling’s fault.
Okay, technically, I probably had something to do with my lack of sleep. I have a fully-functioning brain that controls my fully-functioning hands that could have simply reached for the remote and turned the TV off, but my my hands didn’t want to listen to my brain, especially not at 4 AM when my brain was screaming that I needed to go to sleep immediately because I had work to do, and papers to write, and finals to prepare for. But my hands and eyes refused to be torn away from my newest obsession: The Mindy Project.
Confession: I’ve been avoiding this show. After a two season, multi-day gorge fest, it’s almost hard to remember why, but once upon a time, a million people I knew insisted that I had to start watching The Mindy Project because I would absolutely love it.
Which is exactly why I had been avoiding it.
This might make no sense, but hear me out: Last summer, everyone I knew told me to watch HBO’s Girls because for whatever reason, it struck them as the kind of thing that I would love. The only problem is that I absolutely hated it. Upon confessing that I couldn’t watch more than 15 minutes of the show, I was subject to cries of disbelief and insistence that I give it another try. People were constantly trying to explain characters and plot lines to me and defending their favorite episodes until eventually, I had no choice but to lie and say it was great just so everyone would leave me alone.
It was exhausting.
And because I had loved Kaling on The Office and respected her as a writer, I couldn’t bring myself to watch her show, lest I be disappointed and have to endure the Girls fiasco all over again.
But I was wrong. So very, very wrong.
The show is brilliant. It’s well-written and hilarious and everything I have been missing on TV since 30 Rock wrapped it’s final episode. The show centers around Kaling’s character Mindy Lahiri, a smart, successful private practice OB/GYN with a laughably disastrous personal life and a slew of co-workers who seem to be set on making her life harder rather than easier.
The best part of the show is that it’s refreshingly honest. Lahiri is an honest representation of an intelligent woman who is set in her ways and can be difficult and maybe a little immature, but in the best of ways, who just wants to have it all. Who can’t relate to that?
So while I may not recommend watching every episode of both seasons (that have been made so far) of the show in one sitting, I would definitely recommend watching them at a more normal, non-obsessive pace. You won’t be disappointed.
And if you are, don’t worry. Just tell me that you feel the same way about Mindy as I feel about Girls, and we’ll never speak of it again.
Deal?
Okay, technically, I probably had something to do with my lack of sleep. I have a fully-functioning brain that controls my fully-functioning hands that could have simply reached for the remote and turned the TV off, but my my hands didn’t want to listen to my brain, especially not at 4 AM when my brain was screaming that I needed to go to sleep immediately because I had work to do, and papers to write, and finals to prepare for. But my hands and eyes refused to be torn away from my newest obsession: The Mindy Project.
Confession: I’ve been avoiding this show. After a two season, multi-day gorge fest, it’s almost hard to remember why, but once upon a time, a million people I knew insisted that I had to start watching The Mindy Project because I would absolutely love it.
Which is exactly why I had been avoiding it.
This might make no sense, but hear me out: Last summer, everyone I knew told me to watch HBO’s Girls because for whatever reason, it struck them as the kind of thing that I would love. The only problem is that I absolutely hated it. Upon confessing that I couldn’t watch more than 15 minutes of the show, I was subject to cries of disbelief and insistence that I give it another try. People were constantly trying to explain characters and plot lines to me and defending their favorite episodes until eventually, I had no choice but to lie and say it was great just so everyone would leave me alone.
It was exhausting.
And because I had loved Kaling on The Office and respected her as a writer, I couldn’t bring myself to watch her show, lest I be disappointed and have to endure the Girls fiasco all over again.
But I was wrong. So very, very wrong.
The show is brilliant. It’s well-written and hilarious and everything I have been missing on TV since 30 Rock wrapped it’s final episode. The show centers around Kaling’s character Mindy Lahiri, a smart, successful private practice OB/GYN with a laughably disastrous personal life and a slew of co-workers who seem to be set on making her life harder rather than easier.
The best part of the show is that it’s refreshingly honest. Lahiri is an honest representation of an intelligent woman who is set in her ways and can be difficult and maybe a little immature, but in the best of ways, who just wants to have it all. Who can’t relate to that?
So while I may not recommend watching every episode of both seasons (that have been made so far) of the show in one sitting, I would definitely recommend watching them at a more normal, non-obsessive pace. You won’t be disappointed.
And if you are, don’t worry. Just tell me that you feel the same way about Mindy as I feel about Girls, and we’ll never speak of it again.
Deal?
Monday, March 31, 2014
A Lesson In How To Be Fearless
If I had to pick my worst quality, it would be that I am too much of a worrier and not enough of a warrior.
Worriers, as their name implies, are the finicky-type who lie in bed at night twiddling their thumbs over things they have no control over, and are often too paralyzed in their worry to take action. Worriers are the worst-case-scenario-going, Tums-popping nervous people who are often prone to pessimism in most grave situations. We are the exact opposite of warriors who, unsurprisingly, are the action-takers of the world, the fighters, the ones who have formulated an upbeat and optimistic plan of action before the worriers can even begin to comprehend the situation. As someone who's favorite catch-phrase is "Be careful!", I am a classic worrier. No matter how many times I remind myself that worrying is fruitless or how long it takes me to work up the courage to force myself into action, I always have been (and probably also will be) a worrier. But fortunately, this isn't a story about a worrier. This is a story about a warrior.
The warrior is Heather Von St. James, who at only thirty-six years old, was diagnosed with Pleural Mesothelioma , a cancer typically caused by frequent exposure to asbestos. The scary thing about Pleural Mesothelioma is that the disease can lay dormant for as many as ten years, with no symptoms or side effects of any kind, until you basically wake up one day with cancer. Heather, whose father was a construction worker, was exposed to asbestos because she loved to wear her dad's coat that he wore at his construction sites around the house when he was home (like most little girls would). This frequent exposure to asbestos, was enough to infect her with Mesothelioma, though she had no knowledge of the disease whatsoever until her diagnosis. And by the time she was diagnosed, Heather was told that she had only fifteen months left to live.
This in itself would have been a life-changing diagnosis for anyone, but it was made all the more painful by the fact that Heather had given birth to her daughter Lily only three months before the diagnosis. Essentially, Heather had been given both a daughter and a death sentence within the span of only a few months.
Can you even begin to wrap your head around that?
Because honestly, I can't imagine what must have gone through Heather's head. The thing no one tells you about having kids is that it changes the way that your mind works, usually without you even noticing. Suddenly, you can't imagine what your life would be like if you lost your child, and it's equally terrifying to wonder what would happen if they lost you. The thought of your child having to grow up without their mother would be enough for anyone, warrior or not, to fall spectacularly to pieces.
But instead of falling apart, Heather began treatment. On February 2, 2006 she had her infected lung removed, a day her sister, in an effort to add humor to an otherwise dim situation, dubbed "Lung Leavin' Day". In fact, humor and positivity became the dominant forces in Heather's life, despite her grim diagnosis. While fear is human, Heather didn't allow herself to drown in self-pity or worry. It wouldn't have been good for her daughter, her husband, or herself to fall apart. Heather had a choice to let the disease and the worry that came with it dominate her life or not. She chose not.
Fueled by her positive outlook, Heather continued to fight. She had her surgery and passed her fifteen month deadline. And then lived for another year, and another, and another. Today Heather is an advocate for Asbestos Awareness and Pleural Mesothelioma and is living a happy, cancer-free life with her husband Cameron and Lily, who is now eight. In honor of the surgery that ultimately saved her life, Heather created Lung Leavin' Day, a website that coincides with the anniversary of her surgery, in which visitors can write their fears on virtual plates and smash them into a fire (Heather and her husband Cameron do this every year, but with real fire and real plates). I love this because even with all of her positivity, Heather is saying that it is still okay to have fears. Fear is normal, but smashing that fear and seeing the good in every day is the thing that can truly heal you.
Heather is a testament to the power of positivity.The hardest thing in the world is holding it together when the world around you feels like it's spiraling out of control, and to see the positive in scary situations. Fear can make worriers out of warriors and worriers crumble with self-doubt. But if you don't let it control you, fear can also make you a fighter. I would call Heather fearless, not because there is an absence of fear in her life, but because she doesn't let fear control her life. Through positivity and awareness, Heather turns fear into the fuel for her fire.
Talk about a warrior.
If you would like to learn more about Heather or smash a few plates (which I highly recommend), please check out her blog.
Worriers, as their name implies, are the finicky-type who lie in bed at night twiddling their thumbs over things they have no control over, and are often too paralyzed in their worry to take action. Worriers are the worst-case-scenario-going, Tums-popping nervous people who are often prone to pessimism in most grave situations. We are the exact opposite of warriors who, unsurprisingly, are the action-takers of the world, the fighters, the ones who have formulated an upbeat and optimistic plan of action before the worriers can even begin to comprehend the situation. As someone who's favorite catch-phrase is "Be careful!", I am a classic worrier. No matter how many times I remind myself that worrying is fruitless or how long it takes me to work up the courage to force myself into action, I always have been (and probably also will be) a worrier. But fortunately, this isn't a story about a worrier. This is a story about a warrior.
The warrior is Heather Von St. James, who at only thirty-six years old, was diagnosed with Pleural Mesothelioma , a cancer typically caused by frequent exposure to asbestos. The scary thing about Pleural Mesothelioma is that the disease can lay dormant for as many as ten years, with no symptoms or side effects of any kind, until you basically wake up one day with cancer. Heather, whose father was a construction worker, was exposed to asbestos because she loved to wear her dad's coat that he wore at his construction sites around the house when he was home (like most little girls would). This frequent exposure to asbestos, was enough to infect her with Mesothelioma, though she had no knowledge of the disease whatsoever until her diagnosis. And by the time she was diagnosed, Heather was told that she had only fifteen months left to live.
This in itself would have been a life-changing diagnosis for anyone, but it was made all the more painful by the fact that Heather had given birth to her daughter Lily only three months before the diagnosis. Essentially, Heather had been given both a daughter and a death sentence within the span of only a few months.
Can you even begin to wrap your head around that?
Because honestly, I can't imagine what must have gone through Heather's head. The thing no one tells you about having kids is that it changes the way that your mind works, usually without you even noticing. Suddenly, you can't imagine what your life would be like if you lost your child, and it's equally terrifying to wonder what would happen if they lost you. The thought of your child having to grow up without their mother would be enough for anyone, warrior or not, to fall spectacularly to pieces.
But instead of falling apart, Heather began treatment. On February 2, 2006 she had her infected lung removed, a day her sister, in an effort to add humor to an otherwise dim situation, dubbed "Lung Leavin' Day". In fact, humor and positivity became the dominant forces in Heather's life, despite her grim diagnosis. While fear is human, Heather didn't allow herself to drown in self-pity or worry. It wouldn't have been good for her daughter, her husband, or herself to fall apart. Heather had a choice to let the disease and the worry that came with it dominate her life or not. She chose not.
Fueled by her positive outlook, Heather continued to fight. She had her surgery and passed her fifteen month deadline. And then lived for another year, and another, and another. Today Heather is an advocate for Asbestos Awareness and Pleural Mesothelioma and is living a happy, cancer-free life with her husband Cameron and Lily, who is now eight. In honor of the surgery that ultimately saved her life, Heather created Lung Leavin' Day, a website that coincides with the anniversary of her surgery, in which visitors can write their fears on virtual plates and smash them into a fire (Heather and her husband Cameron do this every year, but with real fire and real plates). I love this because even with all of her positivity, Heather is saying that it is still okay to have fears. Fear is normal, but smashing that fear and seeing the good in every day is the thing that can truly heal you.
Heather is a testament to the power of positivity.The hardest thing in the world is holding it together when the world around you feels like it's spiraling out of control, and to see the positive in scary situations. Fear can make worriers out of warriors and worriers crumble with self-doubt. But if you don't let it control you, fear can also make you a fighter. I would call Heather fearless, not because there is an absence of fear in her life, but because she doesn't let fear control her life. Through positivity and awareness, Heather turns fear into the fuel for her fire.
Talk about a warrior.
If you would like to learn more about Heather or smash a few plates (which I highly recommend), please check out her blog.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
#YoureARichGirl
During a recent bout of (highly annoying) insomnia, I was channel surfing in the wee hours of the morning and I found it. A TV show so pointless and terrible that it can only be called #TheWorstShowOnTV.
That is, when you aren’t calling it by its actual name, the equally obnoxiously hashtagged #RichKidsOfBeverlyHills. #RCOBH (as the kids call it when it's trending on the Twitter) is the story of privileged, beautiful, spoiled people who tire of spending Daddy’s money and put their trust funds towards building hospitals in third world countries, building homes for the homeless and reading to the blind.
Ha. I wish. I would actually watch that show.
In actuality, the show is based on rich kids (insofar as you can call someone in their mid-20s a 'kid') with piles of Daddy's money, but these rich kids aren't do-gooders so much as spoiled brats who do little more with their lives than blow $10,000 on purses that they lose count of. The show centers around Dorothy and Morgan, both daughters of billionaires and self-proclaimed BFFS, a lofty claim for two people who seem to spend more time tweeting in each others company than actually talking. Frankly, it was a horrifying look at what I sincerely hope is not an accurate representation of the human race, and after the hour I spent watching it, I felt that if I couldn't sleep, the least I could do was warn world of its existence so that my loss of IQ points wouldn't be in vain.
Or at the very least, completely rip it apart. So here goes.
As I mentioned, the story is centered around two spoiled piles of crazy, Morgan and Dorothy. Dorothy is a twenty-five year old "adult" who’s official occupation is “Being Funemployed and Fabuluxe” (It's okay, I have no idea what that means either) and who says super rational things like “You can’t put a price tag on a good night out” while casually paying her $40,000 bar tabs with one of her six her limitless credit card. Generous? Maybe. Completely out of touch with any kind of reality? Absolutely. Worse, Dorothy has no discernible talents, education, goals, or really any sense of reality whatsoever. In fact, Dorothy’s only aspiration in life is her oh-so-specific and practical goal of becoming “The next Asian sensation”.
#NeverGiveUpOnYourDreams, Dorothy.
Her counterpart and aforementioned BFF is Morgan, also twenty-five and also the daughter of a billionaire. Morgan has a worm-faced real estate mogul boyfriend with zero personality and an obsession with asking everyone if she’s looking “thinner in the face” each and every time she sees them (Why? Your guess is as good as mine). Morgan writes (for lack of a better word) a blog called “Boobs and Loubs” which for obvious reasons, I had to look at the second I learned of its existence. While part of me felt I should give Morgan credit for at least doing something else with her life (unlike Dorothy) once I actually saw the blog, I just couldn't muster up any respect. Because, unsurprisingly, Morgan's blog is basically a selfie photo gallery sprinkled with the occasional 100 word blog about how hungover she is (or how no one has told her she looks thinner in the face today). Riveting stuff, really. Morgan's biggest disillusion is that she should write a book because she’s “funny”, but really the only thing funny about Morgan is the fact that she can talk about how funny she is with a perfectly straight face.
Truthfully, there are no words for how utterly pointless and vile this show is. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not above terrible, guilty-pleasure TV (Once I start watching Honey Boo Boo I, shamefully, can't stop) but this show is really hitting rock bottom, entertainment wise. The #RKOBH, with its incessant hashtags (which aren’t just limited to the title, but to each “section” of the show as well), selfies, loud, screechy fights about nothing, and just all around pointlessness, is terrible TV overkill. I mean, #overkill.
Bottom line: I know most reality television is scripted to some extent, but I hope, for the sake of humanity, that these real rich kids are, at the very least, exaggerated versions of themselves and only half as vapid as they appear to be. Truly, every single person on this show is the exact opposite of what I want my kids to turn out to be. And I guess that if I had to put a "value" on the show (ugh) it would be that it's a shining example of how not to raise kids, how money and entitlement make you a horrible, self-involved person. So horrible in fact that it almost makes me wonder if the the whole show is secretly some kind of experiment where terrible people are put on the same desert island and left to duke it out, Hunger Games style.
Ooooh. If only…
Don't believe that these people are nothing but unnecessary drama? Then watch this. And if you can figure out what the hell is going on, please tell me. After about thirty seconds of this nonsense, all I hear is white noise.
That is, when you aren’t calling it by its actual name, the equally obnoxiously hashtagged #RichKidsOfBeverlyHills. #RCOBH (as the kids call it when it's trending on the Twitter) is the story of privileged, beautiful, spoiled people who tire of spending Daddy’s money and put their trust funds towards building hospitals in third world countries, building homes for the homeless and reading to the blind.
Ha. I wish. I would actually watch that show.
In actuality, the show is based on rich kids (insofar as you can call someone in their mid-20s a 'kid') with piles of Daddy's money, but these rich kids aren't do-gooders so much as spoiled brats who do little more with their lives than blow $10,000 on purses that they lose count of. The show centers around Dorothy and Morgan, both daughters of billionaires and self-proclaimed BFFS, a lofty claim for two people who seem to spend more time tweeting in each others company than actually talking. Frankly, it was a horrifying look at what I sincerely hope is not an accurate representation of the human race, and after the hour I spent watching it, I felt that if I couldn't sleep, the least I could do was warn world of its existence so that my loss of IQ points wouldn't be in vain.
Or at the very least, completely rip it apart. So here goes.
As I mentioned, the story is centered around two spoiled piles of crazy, Morgan and Dorothy. Dorothy is a twenty-five year old "adult" who’s official occupation is “Being Funemployed and Fabuluxe” (It's okay, I have no idea what that means either) and who says super rational things like “You can’t put a price tag on a good night out” while casually paying her $40,000 bar tabs with one of her six her limitless credit card. Generous? Maybe. Completely out of touch with any kind of reality? Absolutely. Worse, Dorothy has no discernible talents, education, goals, or really any sense of reality whatsoever. In fact, Dorothy’s only aspiration in life is her oh-so-specific and practical goal of becoming “The next Asian sensation”.
#NeverGiveUpOnYourDreams, Dorothy.
Her counterpart and aforementioned BFF is Morgan, also twenty-five and also the daughter of a billionaire. Morgan has a worm-faced real estate mogul boyfriend with zero personality and an obsession with asking everyone if she’s looking “thinner in the face” each and every time she sees them (Why? Your guess is as good as mine). Morgan writes (for lack of a better word) a blog called “Boobs and Loubs” which for obvious reasons, I had to look at the second I learned of its existence. While part of me felt I should give Morgan credit for at least doing something else with her life (unlike Dorothy) once I actually saw the blog, I just couldn't muster up any respect. Because, unsurprisingly, Morgan's blog is basically a selfie photo gallery sprinkled with the occasional 100 word blog about how hungover she is (or how no one has told her she looks thinner in the face today). Riveting stuff, really. Morgan's biggest disillusion is that she should write a book because she’s “funny”, but really the only thing funny about Morgan is the fact that she can talk about how funny she is with a perfectly straight face.
Truthfully, there are no words for how utterly pointless and vile this show is. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not above terrible, guilty-pleasure TV (Once I start watching Honey Boo Boo I, shamefully, can't stop) but this show is really hitting rock bottom, entertainment wise. The #RKOBH, with its incessant hashtags (which aren’t just limited to the title, but to each “section” of the show as well), selfies, loud, screechy fights about nothing, and just all around pointlessness, is terrible TV overkill. I mean, #overkill.
Bottom line: I know most reality television is scripted to some extent, but I hope, for the sake of humanity, that these real rich kids are, at the very least, exaggerated versions of themselves and only half as vapid as they appear to be. Truly, every single person on this show is the exact opposite of what I want my kids to turn out to be. And I guess that if I had to put a "value" on the show (ugh) it would be that it's a shining example of how not to raise kids, how money and entitlement make you a horrible, self-involved person. So horrible in fact that it almost makes me wonder if the the whole show is secretly some kind of experiment where terrible people are put on the same desert island and left to duke it out, Hunger Games style.
Ooooh. If only…
Friday, January 17, 2014
Freddy Says RELAX
Confession: I absolutely hate scary movies.
I realize that this is, to say the least, an extremely unpopular opinion. In today's zombie-obsessed, blood-and-gore-loving culture, it's much more likely to find 100 people who not only search out scary movies but love every minute of them than one pseudo-adult cowering in a corner just waiting for the tamest of scary movies to be over with. I have been encouraged by many good-intending friends to try to build up some kind of scare immunity by immersing myself in American Horror Story (no thanks), or The Walking Dead (double no thanks) or Twilight (which, coincidentally, was terrifying but probably not in the way that the suggester had intended). I just can't do it. A love affair with all things terrifying just isn't in the cards for me. Not since Freddy ruined it all.
I should probably back up a bit.
The year is 1988 and it's some time right around Halloween. I am four years old and have just been informed by my babysitter that she forgot her copy of "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" that she meant to bring with her (I should say "allegedly" forgot because frankly, I have my doubts). To make us happy (i.e. make us stop complaining incessantly), the babysitter in question tells us that she has another movie with her, one that I've never heard of, but judging by my brother's ecstatic reaction is something that I should at least pretend to want to see. That movie is Nightmare on Elm Street.
For those of you who have never seen the movie, the basic premise is that children are stalked and killed in their dreams by the ultimate scary guy Freddy Krueger. Now, I realize that back in 1988 there weren't the same set-in-stone, Oprah-approved guidelines for what kids should and shouldn't watch that we have today, but come on. Regardless of the times, it should be obvious that showing a four-year-old Nightmare on Elm Street will not end well for anyone. Children. Being Killed. In their sleep. It's basically every kid's worse nightmare (no pun intended) and it was definitely a far cry from the Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers that my young, innocent eyes were used to.
Needless to say, the babysitter was fired and never seen or heard from again, but the damage was already done. For weeks on end, I'd wake up screaming, sweaty and terrified that I was going to be killed in my sleep (assuming I had allowed myself to fall asleep at all). It was awful. Now many years later as a parent myself, I can now fully appreciate the hell that my mom must have been going through trying to coax me to sleep and convince me that I didn't need to be curled into a shaking ball at the end of her bed every night. Luckily for me (and her, probably), I had a mom with a plan.
Quick question: Does anyone remember mall tours? If you're too young to remember (or were too cool to care at the time), a mall tour was a somewhat clever marketing tool of the 80's/early 90's where a few A-list and B-list celebrities would tour the malls of major cities (because malls used to be cool back in the day as odd as that seems now) promoting whatever they were working on at the time. Picture the cast of Saved By The Bell signing autographs outside of Sears next to Orange Julius and you'll get the idea. Mall tours were actually pretty cheesy and completely unnatural, but we didn't have Twitter back then so we had to take what we could get. Anyway, since we were living in Santa Fe at the time and people always seem to want to to go Santa Fe for some reason (I'll leave my Santa Fe hating at that, but I could honestly write an entire blog on how overrated it is. Sorry, Santa Fe), my mom caught wind that some of the cast of Nightmare on Elm Street would be appearing at a mall near us, including Robert Englund AKA Mr. Freddy himself. And she decided that if she couldn't convince me that he was just a normal guy in make-up, she'd let him convince me instead.
Retrospectively, this was a great lesson in facing your fears boldly and head-on. But at the time, I honestly thought my mom was trying to have me killed. I BEGGED her not to take me, pleaded, bargained (to the best of my limited four-year-old abilities), but my mom refused to budge. She was just as sick of the nightmares and constant feeling of terror as I was and probably just really wanted to get a decent night's sleep. I was going whether I wanted to go or not. I was meeting Freddy Krueger.
The big day arrived and after prying me (literally) from the car, we made our way inside the mall. Naturally, it was packed with fans, and there were fedoras and stripped sweaters as far as the eye could see. I distinctly remember the fact that I couldn't breathe. My heart pounded against my rib cage so hard I was half-expecting it to pop out of my body. On top of what I would later realize was a panic attack, I felt a blind, raging hatred for my mom at that moment, still not convinced that she was trying to help me and not have me killed. I was so panicked that it took me awhile to realize that we had stopped walking and were standing in front of youngish, perfectly normal looking guy with a sharpie poised over a stack of Freddy pictures ready to sign for fans. "Who's this guy?" I wondered, my eyes still scanning over the crowds, expecting my untimely demise at the hands (claws, really) of a psychopath, not knowing what random, smiling dude at a card table had to do with anything. My mom introduced us and quickly explained the situation basically telling Mr. Englund that neither of us had had a good night's sleep in weeks due to my crippling fear of Freddy. The incredibly nice and not at all scary Mr. Englund spent about 15 minutes explaining to me that he was an actor playing a part. His scary Freddy face was nothing more than make-up and the premise of children being stalked and murdered in their dreams was just a creative, well-told story. No more, no less. It was a defining moment for me in terms of separating fantasy from reality. I have a feeling that he probably had to have this kind of chat with a lot of terrified children over the span of his career, and although I don't remember everything he said, I remember that he was sweet, friendly and gracious. In other words, about as far from Freddy Krueger as a person can get.
Needless to say, everyone in my house had a great night's sleep that night. Finally.
Although meeting Robert Englund was a really cool moment in my life and I learned a lot about acting, crazy, creative make-up and storytelling, the aftermath of Nightmare on Elm Street has continued to haunt me in ways. I can cringe my way through a scary movie, but I don't particularly like it (okay, fine. I hate it). The experience also made me much more strict about what I find appropriate or inappropriate for my kids to watch and a real stickler for sensible, responsible babysitters.
And I don't think it's any coincidence that I've always hated fedoras.
I realize that this is, to say the least, an extremely unpopular opinion. In today's zombie-obsessed, blood-and-gore-loving culture, it's much more likely to find 100 people who not only search out scary movies but love every minute of them than one pseudo-adult cowering in a corner just waiting for the tamest of scary movies to be over with. I have been encouraged by many good-intending friends to try to build up some kind of scare immunity by immersing myself in American Horror Story (no thanks), or The Walking Dead (double no thanks) or Twilight (which, coincidentally, was terrifying but probably not in the way that the suggester had intended). I just can't do it. A love affair with all things terrifying just isn't in the cards for me. Not since Freddy ruined it all.
I should probably back up a bit.
The year is 1988 and it's some time right around Halloween. I am four years old and have just been informed by my babysitter that she forgot her copy of "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" that she meant to bring with her (I should say "allegedly" forgot because frankly, I have my doubts). To make us happy (i.e. make us stop complaining incessantly), the babysitter in question tells us that she has another movie with her, one that I've never heard of, but judging by my brother's ecstatic reaction is something that I should at least pretend to want to see. That movie is Nightmare on Elm Street.
For those of you who have never seen the movie, the basic premise is that children are stalked and killed in their dreams by the ultimate scary guy Freddy Krueger. Now, I realize that back in 1988 there weren't the same set-in-stone, Oprah-approved guidelines for what kids should and shouldn't watch that we have today, but come on. Regardless of the times, it should be obvious that showing a four-year-old Nightmare on Elm Street will not end well for anyone. Children. Being Killed. In their sleep. It's basically every kid's worse nightmare (no pun intended) and it was definitely a far cry from the Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers that my young, innocent eyes were used to.
Needless to say, the babysitter was fired and never seen or heard from again, but the damage was already done. For weeks on end, I'd wake up screaming, sweaty and terrified that I was going to be killed in my sleep (assuming I had allowed myself to fall asleep at all). It was awful. Now many years later as a parent myself, I can now fully appreciate the hell that my mom must have been going through trying to coax me to sleep and convince me that I didn't need to be curled into a shaking ball at the end of her bed every night. Luckily for me (and her, probably), I had a mom with a plan.
Quick question: Does anyone remember mall tours? If you're too young to remember (or were too cool to care at the time), a mall tour was a somewhat clever marketing tool of the 80's/early 90's where a few A-list and B-list celebrities would tour the malls of major cities (because malls used to be cool back in the day as odd as that seems now) promoting whatever they were working on at the time. Picture the cast of Saved By The Bell signing autographs outside of Sears next to Orange Julius and you'll get the idea. Mall tours were actually pretty cheesy and completely unnatural, but we didn't have Twitter back then so we had to take what we could get. Anyway, since we were living in Santa Fe at the time and people always seem to want to to go Santa Fe for some reason (I'll leave my Santa Fe hating at that, but I could honestly write an entire blog on how overrated it is. Sorry, Santa Fe), my mom caught wind that some of the cast of Nightmare on Elm Street would be appearing at a mall near us, including Robert Englund AKA Mr. Freddy himself. And she decided that if she couldn't convince me that he was just a normal guy in make-up, she'd let him convince me instead.
Retrospectively, this was a great lesson in facing your fears boldly and head-on. But at the time, I honestly thought my mom was trying to have me killed. I BEGGED her not to take me, pleaded, bargained (to the best of my limited four-year-old abilities), but my mom refused to budge. She was just as sick of the nightmares and constant feeling of terror as I was and probably just really wanted to get a decent night's sleep. I was going whether I wanted to go or not. I was meeting Freddy Krueger.
The big day arrived and after prying me (literally) from the car, we made our way inside the mall. Naturally, it was packed with fans, and there were fedoras and stripped sweaters as far as the eye could see. I distinctly remember the fact that I couldn't breathe. My heart pounded against my rib cage so hard I was half-expecting it to pop out of my body. On top of what I would later realize was a panic attack, I felt a blind, raging hatred for my mom at that moment, still not convinced that she was trying to help me and not have me killed. I was so panicked that it took me awhile to realize that we had stopped walking and were standing in front of youngish, perfectly normal looking guy with a sharpie poised over a stack of Freddy pictures ready to sign for fans. "Who's this guy?" I wondered, my eyes still scanning over the crowds, expecting my untimely demise at the hands (claws, really) of a psychopath, not knowing what random, smiling dude at a card table had to do with anything. My mom introduced us and quickly explained the situation basically telling Mr. Englund that neither of us had had a good night's sleep in weeks due to my crippling fear of Freddy. The incredibly nice and not at all scary Mr. Englund spent about 15 minutes explaining to me that he was an actor playing a part. His scary Freddy face was nothing more than make-up and the premise of children being stalked and murdered in their dreams was just a creative, well-told story. No more, no less. It was a defining moment for me in terms of separating fantasy from reality. I have a feeling that he probably had to have this kind of chat with a lot of terrified children over the span of his career, and although I don't remember everything he said, I remember that he was sweet, friendly and gracious. In other words, about as far from Freddy Krueger as a person can get.
Needless to say, everyone in my house had a great night's sleep that night. Finally.
Although meeting Robert Englund was a really cool moment in my life and I learned a lot about acting, crazy, creative make-up and storytelling, the aftermath of Nightmare on Elm Street has continued to haunt me in ways. I can cringe my way through a scary movie, but I don't particularly like it (okay, fine. I hate it). The experience also made me much more strict about what I find appropriate or inappropriate for my kids to watch and a real stickler for sensible, responsible babysitters.
And I don't think it's any coincidence that I've always hated fedoras.
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| Freddy Krueger: A face a mother couldn't even love. |
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