I thought I had been doing pretty well about not letting my own pop culture biases affect (or some would say “infect") my niece. Take the other day, for example. While shopping for a stocking stuffer book, I chanced upon a literary tome that immediately caught my eye. Entitled Scooby Doo and the Rock and Roll Zombie, my first thought was that this was the perfect gift for Cameron. Surely its gripping narrative and eye-popping illustrations would encourage her to take yet another step into the wonderful world of reading.
Now, I hadn’t read this particular installment in the Scooby Doo saga. But if I knew my literature, this alleged “Rock and Roll Zombie” would turn out to be the harmless old caretaker of the amusement park. Or perhaps the mean-spirited magnate who was attempting to buy out said amusement park.
Or it might actually be the caretaker wearing the mask of the magnate underneath the mask of the Zombie! I hoped not, though. That whole “dual mask” twist is juicy but it’s also rather complicated. Surely such “Usual Suspects"-style reveals should be the province of a book that’s intended for, say ages 6 and up, rather than 5.
But as I reached for the book, I thought, well, maybe I was thinking too much about my own childhood and maybe it was possible to find something a little less corporate-ty for Cam. And I ended up finding a very nice book with gorgeous, burnished illustrations and an easy-to-follow story. It didn’t have any rock and roll zombies, which I count as a minus (that’s also the reason I didn’t like Anna Karenina), but otherwise it seemed like a good choice.
Sounds like a rational chain of decision making? Except that I had an exchange with my sister-in-law the other day that made me realize that I haven’t been as good at this as I had thought:
SHE: Cameron’s decided that she wants a theme party for her next birthday.
ME: Oh, sounds great.
SHE (coldly): Yes...A Spider-Man party.
ME: Ha! Really? Now that’s a chip of the old…
SHE: .....
ME: ...er...I mean...how nice?
SHE: Yes. I told her great, you can invite your uncle and all of your uncle’s friends.
I don’t remember foisting Spider-Man upon my niece, but maybe it just comes off me subliminally. Or maybe it’s in the Howard blood. Maybe the Howard blood is radioactive.
(To digress for a moment, I’m confused why Dora the Explorer is somehow a more noble franchise to buy toys from than, say, Spider-Man. I mean, talk about a role model that kids can’t live up to. How old is Dora supposed to be? Eight or so? You show me a kid who is actually an “Explorer” by age eight. I could see Dora the Pooping or Dora the Oftentimes Drooling in her Sleep, but world traveling? Let me tell you what I used to carry around with me when I was eight years old: beef jerky, Star Wars cards, and maybe a frog or two. You know what I didn’t carry around? A PASSPORT. If these are the characters that our kids are supposed to emulate, they’ll all be burnt out before junior high.)
The reality is, I don’t care one bit whether Cam reads about pink parasols or rock and roll zombies. We start telling stories to kids as soon as they’re born: “This is who you are. This is where you came from. This is where you’re going.” And eventually they start choosing their own stories. And no one, ever, has the time to read all of the stories in the world. From that point of view, it doesn’t matter what stories you read, whether they’re these stories or those stories--as long as you’re immersed in them, and eventually have the ability to choose the ones that matter to you. As long as she does that, I will happily stand down.
Which isn’t to say that I won’t stick her with Lemony Snicket down the road.
By, “This is where you came from” you’re not talking about the birds and the bees, are you?
And speaking of that, I still haven’t figured out what the best age is to bring that up with a kid.
Dora the Explorer scares me.
This is my favorite entry of yours yet, for the record. Will someone be a lamb and steer me toward the records?
Meanwhile, I think you made the right gift choice. If there’s one thing kids love, it’s burnishing.
“This is where you’re going . . . . . . . .? We may tell our kids that story, but as you say, they choose their own ending. For example, did I ever expect to be the parent of someone who makes his living doing marketing?? As for .Cam, any story that ends with “muffin” is OK with her
THB, I was thinking more about understanding who family members are and memorizing one’s street address. Donovan, thanks. Also, it took me a second to get that “record” joke, but then I laughed. Dad, I was thinking more of an open-ended story about “You will work hard and then you can do anything,” as opposed to “In 30 years you will need to increase your conversion rates by 10% in the fourth quarter.”
last weekend Z was begging me to buy him sunglasses, and it turned out that the big drugstore we were in at the time carried two kinds for little kids: dark, heavy-rimmed wayfarer-types with little bats at the templebar pivots (batman glasses!), and small sparkly pale-blue-and-pink ones with all kinds of Dora crap all over them and it’s not like we’ve ever shown him Dora in our lives. He demanded dora. He didn’t seem to understand that it reflected poorly on me as a dad, as well. and the thing that killed me was that he still looked cool in them. little twirp.
I know you weren’t really asking, but I think the whole Dora versus Spiderman thing boils down to violence, blah blah blah. Ya know, cause the kids don’t see violence anywhere in the “real” world so we should totally cushion them against it. Unnnhuh.
Give her some old classics like “How to Eat Fried Worms” or “The Mouse and the Motorcycle.”
I love this post. So glad I found your blog.
My mom used to read me a “classic” chapter before bed each night. My favorite was her grandmother’s decrepit (illustrated) copy of Queen Zixi of Ix. I mean, yeah, she was probably stoned for the whole story, and I sure felt stoned listening to L Frank Baum before bed, but that’s bonding. Can I recommend the Garland-less Oz books?
the influence of a cool nonparent lasts a lifetime. one of our family friends would always play that chipmunks christmas record (featuring the one about the hula hoop) for me when i was in third grade, and alvin seemed so much cooler because i associated it with her. all these years later, i find myself shaking my fist at the movie ads for corrupting what i loved so much as a kid.