Magic and muppets

If you’re the type of adult who would strip all belief in magic & wonder from a child, you’re a vile bastard and no one should ever love you.

I tweeted that the other night, after Trey let me know that an adult he trusts told him that Sesame Street is for babies, and that the characters are just puppets. I guess by itself, that’s not entirely a bad thing. I mean, Trey is six years old now (-now 9 in 2015, and it continues; he just told me he had every Captain Underpants and Wimpy Kid book he owns at one house confiscated, because he spends too much time reading ‘kid books’) and it’s probably time to put away childish things like enjoying educational public television and believing in cookie-eating muppets. But for whatever reason, I guess I’m just overly sensitive to adults pushing kids to grow up on their schedule rather than their kid’s. I mean, I know I’m only his stepdad, but personally, I think it’s my job to cram as much magic and amazement into Trey’s life as possible. The world will try its best to squeeze it out of him as fast as it can, but I think it’s a parent’s responsibility to push back. Because there’s a lot to be said for being able to truly believe in the impossible when you’re young. It helps you still believe in what you know is possible as an adult, even when everyone around you says it isn’t.

So yeah, to my way of thinking, the Sesame Street characters can be real and not puppets for as long as Trey wants them to be. His stuffed animals can be real friends who listen and talk to him, and who he shares adventures with for as long as he wants to. And monsters and danger and dire wolves in the forest can lie in wait just off the road to pounce on unwary travelers for as long as he can imagine they’re there.

And that’s not a bad thing. He doesn’t need to know that Santa Claus is just me stomping clumsily around the roof and hoping I don’t die on Christmas Eve. He doesn’t have to be told that vampires and werewolves and witches aren’t real on Halloween. He doesn’t need me or any other adult to tell him that his favorite television show is for babies, or that believing he can become a Jedi is stupid. He can wait for his Hogwart’s letter to come on his 11th birthday, if he wants to. Because it’s not about turning a cute baby into a self-reliant adult once they stop being a prop you can use to get people to fawn over you and start having minds of their own. It’s about letting them let their minds take them to wherever they want to be.

And an imagination can take you to incredible places. And terrifying places. And places of magic and wonder, and of hopelessness and despair. A vivid imagination can make the mundane interesting and the amazing truly transcendent. Childhood is made up of a brief series of moments compressed into an ever-dwindling few years where magic can be real and the impossible can be ordinary. A child encouraged to believe is a child who isn’t shackled by the dull and inescapable realities of the mundane world, but rather is set free to explore the limits of their own reality – which, for a child with a good imagination, has no limits. Why, then, do some parents insist on taking this from their children as fast as they can?

I honestly don’t know the answer to that. Maybe they think it’s for the best that children grow up into an increasingly hostile world hardened by as much disillusionment as possible. Maybe they want their kids to be miniaturized versions of themselves as adults, and all the kiddie stuff just gets in the way. Maybe they’re just impatient. And maybe they’re just tired of watching endless reruns of Sesame Street.

But I don’t have any tolerance for an adult who would rob a child of magic. I just don’t. Childhood is short, and it’s getting shorter every generation. I don’t know why we make kids grow up so quickly today, or why a little boy’s clothing options go from Mickey Mouse and Thomas the train from 0-5 to skulls and camouflage and Affliction t-shirts by the time they’re six. Or, for that matter, why girls go from Pretty Polly Princess Everything to sequins, short shorts and miniskirts overnight. Seriously, it’s like zero to slutty in 4.5 seconds – and we think that’s ok. But that’s a rant for another time, and trust me. I have plenty to say on the inequity of gender roles and the great disservice we do to our girls by painting their world pink.

Back to the topic at hand though, please stop forcing your own insecurities on your children. It doesn’t matter what other parents might think, or what your childless friends (who always seem to somehow know everything about raising children) say. And it doesn’t matter that you want your son to hurry up and grow into liking whatever you think is cool. Nothing matters but your own kid, and what he wants to grow into. At his own pace.

A child needs to feel free to like childish things until he matures to that particular point of immaturity where he puts them away for fear of ridicule and out of the childish desire to grow up. But some of my favorite people never did that. Or they did, but then thought better about it and decided the rest of the world could get bent.

“Critics who treat ‘adult’ as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” – C. S. Lewis

I have a short list of people I truly admire. My parents are on it, who, if they did one thing wrong in raising me, was giving me too good of a childhood. I miss it terribly. They gave me the freedom to like whatever I liked, to pursue whatever interested me (outside of a couple of ill-conceived but well-meaning nudges towards various sportsball activities that never quite stuck) and to generally grow into whatever I wanted to become. Sure, they guided me and helped push me in the right direction from time to time, but by and large, they just let me be a kid. I’ll always love them for that.

I draw the line at believing in the Elf On The Shelf, though. Seriously, parents. This is a one-way ticket to Creepytown. Stop taking your kids there.

And it’s something I want to pass on to Trey. I want to play with him like my father played with me, all wild-eyed and full of childish excitement. I want to support him like my mother supported me, always there to fall back to when things got too real, too fast. But mostly, I just want him to know it’s ok to be a kid. It’s ok to be into goofy things other kids (and grown ups) think are silly. Because they don’t matter. And I really want him to learn that, so I’ll say it again. They. Don’t. Matter.

If I can teach him one thing, it’s that choosing his own path is the only way he’ll get to wherever he wants to go. Throughout his life, plenty of people will offer him directions. Some may offer him a ride. But no one can get him to where he’s going but himself, because only he knows where he’s been, where he is and where he wants to be. Anyone who says any different is already lost and just wants company.

So anyway, I encourage him to dream with the dreamers. I read him dangerous stories with threatening ideas from authors unburdened by the constraints of reality. People like Neil Gaiman, Adam-Troy Castro, J.K. Rowling, Terry Pratchett, Jay Lake, Harlan Ellison, Cat Rambo, Ray Bradbury, Sandra Odell and Arthur C. Clarke will be on his reading list as he grows up. Some already are. And one or two of them are my friends, because sometimes I’m a lucky bastard. And I’m extraordinarily fortunate to know them.

I hope Trey grows up to miss his childhood so much that he gets back to it as quickly as possible, and leaves the world of the Normals to the normal, boring people doing normal, boring things with their normal, boring lives until they die normal and boring little deaths. I hope I give him the courage to dream big and dream often, and to dream at least a few dreams for all the other grown-ups who’ve forgotten how.

But what do I know? I’m just a kid who wanted to be an astronaut before he became an anthropology student who became a computer technician who became a writer who became a webmaster who became a stepdad who became a journalist who became a systems administrator for the biggest defense contractor you’ve never heard of, who is now kinda/sorta freelance word working. Clearly, I have no idea what I’m doing.

And I like it that way.

Dreamers grow up to be literary rock stars with crazy hair and a private army of bees trained to smite one’s enemies. True story.

Want some books? 'Course ya do!

NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.

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