My Mom always used to say "Garbage In...Garbage Out!" It was a philosophy well adopted as truth in my family and I still believe it to be true today. What we surround ourselves with, what we expose ourselves to, and what we entertain our lives with will inevitably become a part of who we are as well. Back in the days when my mother would reiterate this theme it was in reference to myself and my sister spending our time listening to rap music or watching the forbidden "Married With Children" on television. Now of course, I am the adult and can readily tell that the children around me are influenced greatly by the things we introduce to them and those things ultimately determine their demeanor and reactions in certain situations. But the question I have today is not if that philosophy I have is true or not...but whether or not we could ever really BLAME the television and music our children indulge in as the cause of their actions.
I believe that we all are ultimately in the business of fitting in. We all want to belong and we all want to be accepted in this world. Whether we do this by dressing a certain way, listening to a certain genre of music, or even drinking a certain energy drink or using a certain language...we all want to feel like we are part of a collective "cool". Whatever we deem that to be, we want to be that certain image and strive to obtain that nearly our whole lives. We get our sense of style, our language, our boundaries as what is and is not morally and socially acceptable, and our very first sense of belonging or fitting in from our families. I have a neice and nephew who are utterly obsessed with horror movies. They are young and impressionable but the blood, gore, suspense, and extent of some human depravity seem not to bother their otherwise adorable young minds. Their mother loved horror movies, their dad, sister, aunts, uncles, just about everyone who has ever been related to someone with their same surname LOVES getting the bejesus scared out of them by the likes of Hitchcock and Tarantino. Where did they get the stomach and desire to see such images without wanting to vomit violently like their outcast Aunt Me? DNA? Genetics? I highly doubt it. They grew up with it in the background. They were told how the fake blood is made and how actors play the roles of the scary monstrous serial killers and they seem to accept this pastime as something completely socially acceptable.
Now, since my neice and nephew are twins...let's use them in my hypothetical. They both grew up watching these shows. They both have been exposed to the same images and plots. They are both from the same genetic stock. What if one of then suddenly and heaven forbiddingly decided to act out one of these movies and murdered someone? Would the show be to blame? Well, no? They both saw the same show but only one decided that it was acceptable to emulate those things. The other one stayed firmly planted in reality and never hurt a fly. But, how did the psychopathic one get the idea to murder? He or she never saw it anywhere other than the television screen at home during Home Horror Night. So, can we blame the violence on that movie? Or do we blame some other source like lack of parenting or genetics?
Personally, it's simple mathmatics. Like one of those annoyingly difficult and ridiculously irrelevant SAT questions. Not everyone that watches horror movies kill people. Not all killers watch horror movies. Not all parents allow their kids to watch horror movies. But the parents who do are not breeding violence by simply doing so. There has to be a combination of all of these factors, mixed with the right emotional makeup of the child to create a brain that sees those things and then acts out accordingly. But then that does beg that question that if NO kids ever saw horror films and NO parents saw it acceptable to subject their children to such material...would ANYONE grow up violent? I'd have to say yes. The human mind will always find a way to seek revenge and inflict pain until all those sins are non-existent on the face of the earth. But I DO believe the number would be MUCH MUCH smaller if we shelter those young minds and surrounded them with the love and ideals we would hope all children should have.
So, in conclusion, I say shelter the ever loving crap out of your kids. Don't risk the chance that in the right circumstances with the right emotions your child will remember the bad choices of Jonny Serial Killer instead of the love and guidance you provided. If we keep our kids KIDS instead of forcing adult ideas and concepts on them...then maybe we won't be shocked when they act more like kids. Show them only the good in life while they have that option...because sooner than you both wish they will have no choice but to realize the world is not chock full of unicorns and rainbows but rather letdowns and the sorrow of lost human empathy.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Sunday, July 10, 2011
The Fairytale
I remember being a little girl, with a scantly clad Barbie in one hand and Botoxed looking Ken in the other...and I would sit for hours and make them do all sorts of crazy things together. All little girls play this narcissistic yet romantic scenario time and time again during childhood. We make them kiss non-stop...go everywhere together...live in mansions and drive cars that suggest Ken may be compensating for something. But, as many times as I remember this fond pastime, I never remember Ken telling Barbie that he had found someone else, or her looking at him and complaining that he didn't even know her anymore. Never did they fight. Never did they want "space". Ken always treated her like a princess, and she never took him for granted. Now, I know that my little plastic friends acted this way because I made them with my 5 year old God-like power over them. They had no choice, they had to live out a fairy tale day after day. Because as far as little Jen knew...there was always a fairy tale life following the words "I love you". After two people fell in love, they automatically began their wonderful existence, right?
Now, I don't JUST blame those almost criminally misleading Disney movies for this delusion I developed about love. I also was cursed enough to have parents who have the absolute perfect marriage and never showed me anything but. (Poor me, right?) They are each other's perfect match, each other's best friend, each other's everything. I only remember them having ONE fight within hearing range of me...and it shocked childhood Jen so bad that I asked Mom if they were getting a divorce that night before I went to sleep. I was positive that if they disagreed that it must be the end of the world and most definitely our perfect 50's primetime-like family. I now realize how all these things led to my choices in life. But how I took the perfection I was raised in and turned it into the dysfunctional mess that my life is in now has only recently made some sense to me. I didn't realize until now, some *mumble-mumble* years later in my life, that I am one of the only grownups in the world who still thought that love COULD make your life a fairy tale. I still thought everyone loved the same way I loved, with their entire being. And if they DIDN'T love like I did...than it wasn't really love. I thought as soon as I fell in love, and that man loved me in return, that suddenly I would be able to open up my kitchen window and warble a little tune and all the woodland creatures would rush into my home and help me make a Vera Wang wedding dress from my old bed sheets. In fact, the first time I said, "I love you" to a boy, it was in the extremely depressing era of Kurt Cobain and his love letters talked not of us riding off into the pastel sunset on a white stallion, but rather about us romantically ending our love and our lives in the ultimate tragic Shakespearean fantasy he had concocted. Yes, I had the perfection of my parents union to be my role models for love and he had Kurt and Courtney. Thanks for that late 90's Seattle. I was not appreciative.
Well, if you're thinking I had learned my lesson after the depressive love affair with Mr. Suicide, you are as sadly mistaken as he was. No, I was and still am the most stubborn person I know when it comes to my beliefs. And I FIRMLY believed in my idea of true love. So, I finished out my high school years in love with a boy who learned he could break up with me a kajillion times for whatever pretty girl glanced in his direction that week, and I would take him back without hesitation or question as long as he said those horrible 3 words. He talked JUST like I used to make Ken talk to his girl....so I fell for every word hook, line, and yes....most definitely the sinker. I was positive that if I changed my ways and stopped doing whatever it was that made him want someone else, and if I could just get him to stay my boyfriend longer than a week, we would see that we were destined for our own pink mansion and sports car. But alas, apparently his idea of forever was the same as every other hormone driven 16 year old and once again I was left to ponder what was wrong with me. Afterall, he HAD said he loved me...just like the one before. Obviously, I just wasn't TRYING hard enough. I mean Belle saved a 2 ton beast from falling 80 stories to his death with just her anorexic wrist before she got her prince. Ariel battled a giant octopus witch and won even though her father was turned into a weed and her legs were taken away....and then Eric was hers forever. Pocahontas saved her race, Mulan fought in a war pretending to be a guy and even Sleeping Beauty had to get put into a coma before they got the guy. If I was going to go from Jen the Lovesick Teen to Princess Jen of Ohio...I was going to have to fight the good fight. I was going to have to make sure I did everything I could to keep any guy that I was lucky enough to get to love me. I was going to have to believe 1000% in the dream, and I was going to have to prove it to him by fighting whatever came our way in a duel to the death if that's what it took. That was the worst epiphany of my existence. I never fathomed that I would be in this epic battle for my life against the same guy that I was trying to prove my love to.
I loved him more than I had ever known was possible in my limited time on Earth. I had all the classic symptoms. He made me get butterflies when he said my name. When he kissed me my head started spinning and I lost track of time. He made me laugh like no one else. He told me that I was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen and that he couldn't wait to spend the rest of his life with me. He knew how to love me the way I deserved, he explained in detail in those early days, because growing up he had seen the exact opposite. He was too young to remember it clearly but he knew his dad had beat his mom so severely that she had been hospitalized 16 times. Dad had driven Mom to sneak him and his siblings out of the house one night, fearful for all of their lives when he was just 3. The next day, sensing that his Mom was serious this time and REALLY leaving for good....good ole Dad asked to speak to him on the phone. Since he was the youngest, Dad probably figured he was the only kid who didn't know what a monster his father was. So, this toddler that grew up to be the man I loved, took the phone and heard his Dad say "Just wanted to say goodbye!" followed very quickly by the sound of a shotgun killing him. I listened to this story, I saw the tears in his eyes as he bared his soul to me, and I knew that I was meant to love him forever. He promised me that he'd never be like that, he would never do the things that his father did to his Mom. He promised...and I believed. So naturally, when we were just playing around one Saturday morning and he had accidentally thrown me into the nightstand, I knew he was telling the truth when he said he hadn't meant to. He was crying, promising again that he'd never hurt me. I sat beside him, I put my arm around him while the other hand was trying to get the blood to stop gushing from my nose, and I comforted all of his fears away for that entire night. I told him that I knew that he wasn't his father. And after I drove myself to the store to get some Tylenol to dull the pain of the huge knot I had below my left eye, I stayed up all night with him trying to make him feel better. It had obviously been my fault for not paying attention to where I landed. Obviously I was just way too easily bruised and anemic, and any other girl wouldn't have a huge welt and still be bleeding so it looked worse than it was, I told him. When he finally stopped feeling bad, we went to sleep. I then had a nightmare that lasted for 3 1/2 years. He kept losing his temper and I kept losing blood. He kept feeling bad and I kept telling him I was never going to stop loving him because I knew who he was inside. He kept promising me that he wasn't his father's son and I kept ignoring the fact that he was. Even when I had moments of "weakness" and left him, I always knew that no one would ever love me like he did. He told me over and over that if he didn't have SO much emotion for me...so much love...that he wouldn't even care enough to fight with me. I was the stupidest princess ever.
Well, I eventually left after I realized that if I didn't do it alive...then he would make me leave in a body bag. I couldn't understand what had gone wrong. I had believed in our love more than I believed in anything. I fought the epic battles. I was his strength and made him feel better when he was sad. I wiped away my blood and lied to people so they wouldn't believe that he was something he wasn't. Why didn't it work? Why hadn't love conquered all? Was there a possibility that love......was a lie? Every boy that had told me he loved me so far had made my heart hurt so badly. Love wasn't what I thought....and none of them acted like Ken or a Disney chiseled chested prince. I had believed in love more than anyone other girl I knew....and it had broken me both physically and emotionally. I decided that no one would ever make me hurt again. That I would show love that I could play it's little game. I would act like a princess to whoever I was with...but I was keeping my heart to myself. No one would ever destroy my spirit and break me to the point where I was a shell of that little girl with her dolls. But, I didn't keep that promise to myself. Another boy would come....I would start to believe him...and another piece of my heart would break off when I found out it was lie. I kept re-swearing off love...and it kept finding a way back inside me to hurt me again. I am officially enemies with Cupid and St. Valentine. I hope wherever they are they are quite pleased with the destruction they have made of my heart. They sure fooled me.
Why am I writing all this, you ask? Because I finally just realized why I could never really let go of believing that I could have what my parents do...and why I still secretly believe that the fairytale exists. I have always believed that love was out to get me...but really it had nothing to do with me. I never saw that believing in love wasn't the problem....believing all the ASSHOLES I dated was. It was my fault that they hurt me....but not because I wasn't being good enough to them. It was my fault because I loved all those bastards unconditionally and got nothing and return and thought it was okay. I sold myself short. I became whatever they wanted me to just so they would keep saying those stupid words. Love didn't hate me.....love could never find me because I was always out on a date with whoever would take me for granted. Love is waiting for me somewhere but I keep forgetting it's on hold while I wipe up the literal and metaphorical bloody mess I've made of my life.
Yes, Jenifer, fairytales exist. But only if I remember that I am supposed to be the princess in the story...and stop falling in love with the villains.
Now, I don't JUST blame those almost criminally misleading Disney movies for this delusion I developed about love. I also was cursed enough to have parents who have the absolute perfect marriage and never showed me anything but. (Poor me, right?) They are each other's perfect match, each other's best friend, each other's everything. I only remember them having ONE fight within hearing range of me...and it shocked childhood Jen so bad that I asked Mom if they were getting a divorce that night before I went to sleep. I was positive that if they disagreed that it must be the end of the world and most definitely our perfect 50's primetime-like family. I now realize how all these things led to my choices in life. But how I took the perfection I was raised in and turned it into the dysfunctional mess that my life is in now has only recently made some sense to me. I didn't realize until now, some *mumble-mumble* years later in my life, that I am one of the only grownups in the world who still thought that love COULD make your life a fairy tale. I still thought everyone loved the same way I loved, with their entire being. And if they DIDN'T love like I did...than it wasn't really love. I thought as soon as I fell in love, and that man loved me in return, that suddenly I would be able to open up my kitchen window and warble a little tune and all the woodland creatures would rush into my home and help me make a Vera Wang wedding dress from my old bed sheets. In fact, the first time I said, "I love you" to a boy, it was in the extremely depressing era of Kurt Cobain and his love letters talked not of us riding off into the pastel sunset on a white stallion, but rather about us romantically ending our love and our lives in the ultimate tragic Shakespearean fantasy he had concocted. Yes, I had the perfection of my parents union to be my role models for love and he had Kurt and Courtney. Thanks for that late 90's Seattle. I was not appreciative.
Well, if you're thinking I had learned my lesson after the depressive love affair with Mr. Suicide, you are as sadly mistaken as he was. No, I was and still am the most stubborn person I know when it comes to my beliefs. And I FIRMLY believed in my idea of true love. So, I finished out my high school years in love with a boy who learned he could break up with me a kajillion times for whatever pretty girl glanced in his direction that week, and I would take him back without hesitation or question as long as he said those horrible 3 words. He talked JUST like I used to make Ken talk to his girl....so I fell for every word hook, line, and yes....most definitely the sinker. I was positive that if I changed my ways and stopped doing whatever it was that made him want someone else, and if I could just get him to stay my boyfriend longer than a week, we would see that we were destined for our own pink mansion and sports car. But alas, apparently his idea of forever was the same as every other hormone driven 16 year old and once again I was left to ponder what was wrong with me. Afterall, he HAD said he loved me...just like the one before. Obviously, I just wasn't TRYING hard enough. I mean Belle saved a 2 ton beast from falling 80 stories to his death with just her anorexic wrist before she got her prince. Ariel battled a giant octopus witch and won even though her father was turned into a weed and her legs were taken away....and then Eric was hers forever. Pocahontas saved her race, Mulan fought in a war pretending to be a guy and even Sleeping Beauty had to get put into a coma before they got the guy. If I was going to go from Jen the Lovesick Teen to Princess Jen of Ohio...I was going to have to fight the good fight. I was going to have to make sure I did everything I could to keep any guy that I was lucky enough to get to love me. I was going to have to believe 1000% in the dream, and I was going to have to prove it to him by fighting whatever came our way in a duel to the death if that's what it took. That was the worst epiphany of my existence. I never fathomed that I would be in this epic battle for my life against the same guy that I was trying to prove my love to.
I loved him more than I had ever known was possible in my limited time on Earth. I had all the classic symptoms. He made me get butterflies when he said my name. When he kissed me my head started spinning and I lost track of time. He made me laugh like no one else. He told me that I was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen and that he couldn't wait to spend the rest of his life with me. He knew how to love me the way I deserved, he explained in detail in those early days, because growing up he had seen the exact opposite. He was too young to remember it clearly but he knew his dad had beat his mom so severely that she had been hospitalized 16 times. Dad had driven Mom to sneak him and his siblings out of the house one night, fearful for all of their lives when he was just 3. The next day, sensing that his Mom was serious this time and REALLY leaving for good....good ole Dad asked to speak to him on the phone. Since he was the youngest, Dad probably figured he was the only kid who didn't know what a monster his father was. So, this toddler that grew up to be the man I loved, took the phone and heard his Dad say "Just wanted to say goodbye!" followed very quickly by the sound of a shotgun killing him. I listened to this story, I saw the tears in his eyes as he bared his soul to me, and I knew that I was meant to love him forever. He promised me that he'd never be like that, he would never do the things that his father did to his Mom. He promised...and I believed. So naturally, when we were just playing around one Saturday morning and he had accidentally thrown me into the nightstand, I knew he was telling the truth when he said he hadn't meant to. He was crying, promising again that he'd never hurt me. I sat beside him, I put my arm around him while the other hand was trying to get the blood to stop gushing from my nose, and I comforted all of his fears away for that entire night. I told him that I knew that he wasn't his father. And after I drove myself to the store to get some Tylenol to dull the pain of the huge knot I had below my left eye, I stayed up all night with him trying to make him feel better. It had obviously been my fault for not paying attention to where I landed. Obviously I was just way too easily bruised and anemic, and any other girl wouldn't have a huge welt and still be bleeding so it looked worse than it was, I told him. When he finally stopped feeling bad, we went to sleep. I then had a nightmare that lasted for 3 1/2 years. He kept losing his temper and I kept losing blood. He kept feeling bad and I kept telling him I was never going to stop loving him because I knew who he was inside. He kept promising me that he wasn't his father's son and I kept ignoring the fact that he was. Even when I had moments of "weakness" and left him, I always knew that no one would ever love me like he did. He told me over and over that if he didn't have SO much emotion for me...so much love...that he wouldn't even care enough to fight with me. I was the stupidest princess ever.
Well, I eventually left after I realized that if I didn't do it alive...then he would make me leave in a body bag. I couldn't understand what had gone wrong. I had believed in our love more than I believed in anything. I fought the epic battles. I was his strength and made him feel better when he was sad. I wiped away my blood and lied to people so they wouldn't believe that he was something he wasn't. Why didn't it work? Why hadn't love conquered all? Was there a possibility that love......was a lie? Every boy that had told me he loved me so far had made my heart hurt so badly. Love wasn't what I thought....and none of them acted like Ken or a Disney chiseled chested prince. I had believed in love more than anyone other girl I knew....and it had broken me both physically and emotionally. I decided that no one would ever make me hurt again. That I would show love that I could play it's little game. I would act like a princess to whoever I was with...but I was keeping my heart to myself. No one would ever destroy my spirit and break me to the point where I was a shell of that little girl with her dolls. But, I didn't keep that promise to myself. Another boy would come....I would start to believe him...and another piece of my heart would break off when I found out it was lie. I kept re-swearing off love...and it kept finding a way back inside me to hurt me again. I am officially enemies with Cupid and St. Valentine. I hope wherever they are they are quite pleased with the destruction they have made of my heart. They sure fooled me.
Why am I writing all this, you ask? Because I finally just realized why I could never really let go of believing that I could have what my parents do...and why I still secretly believe that the fairytale exists. I have always believed that love was out to get me...but really it had nothing to do with me. I never saw that believing in love wasn't the problem....believing all the ASSHOLES I dated was. It was my fault that they hurt me....but not because I wasn't being good enough to them. It was my fault because I loved all those bastards unconditionally and got nothing and return and thought it was okay. I sold myself short. I became whatever they wanted me to just so they would keep saying those stupid words. Love didn't hate me.....love could never find me because I was always out on a date with whoever would take me for granted. Love is waiting for me somewhere but I keep forgetting it's on hold while I wipe up the literal and metaphorical bloody mess I've made of my life.
Yes, Jenifer, fairytales exist. But only if I remember that I am supposed to be the princess in the story...and stop falling in love with the villains.
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