Parenting Styles Are Like Day And Knight

I've just discovered I'm out of touch as a parent.

As I was surfing earlier this week, I came across an article about whether The Dark Knight is too violent for children. In it, one woman says she regrets taking her 11- and 14-year-old kids to see the movie because it was not appropriate for children. Another guy said he would not have taken his 12-year-old son had he known how violent the film was.

Now, after reading the article and the posted comments that ensued, I was immediately defensive. Why? Because I took my soon-to-be-10-year-old daughter to this movie on opening day. We enjoyed it. We even had a discussion of the film (the acting, the plot, the action scenes, etc.) on the way home from the theater. It never occurred to me that what we had just seen might be too "dark" for her.

So the folks in the article (and some of the comments) must be overreacting, right?

Well, maybe not completely.

Because then I spoke to my pal Joe. He and his family had also made an outing last Friday to see the film. He went with his wife, his mother, his daughter, and his niece who is visiting for the summer. Apparently, his 6-year-old niece has been having nightmares about The Joker ever since. But how could this be? My child didn't have nightmares, and Joe's own daughter (who is 8 years old) has been sleeping well also. Could it be the age difference? No. The parents in the article had children older than ours.

And then it hit me: it's because of the way our children were raised.

I nursed my daughter while watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel,and Charmed. And, later, when she was sick and miserable in the middle of the night, she snuggled next to me and watched Interview with the Vampire and The Craft. At the age of 3, she was sitting through (and comprehending) The Fellowship of the Ring and quoting lines from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

So a criminally insane comic book villain is just par for the entertainment course as far as our kids are concerned. No nightmares. No trauma. Their only reaction was some very astute character analyses and appreciation for a very good motion picture.

Apparently, most children are not being raised in this way. Joe's niece certainly wasn't. That's why The Joker (and Heath Ledger is excellent in the role) gave her nightmares. And the parents in the article must not be the kind of people who read comics or go to sci-fi conventions. Because, after all, if you ever read The Dark Knight series comic books, you already knew this wasn't your garden variety superhero story. And they just thought it was going to be like Batman. Imagine that!

-e