To Disney or Not to Disney . . . This Is Not the Question

I have friends who have proclaimed a moratorium on Disney in their homes. Disney movies. Disney paraphernalia. Disney anything. All of it, verboten. They are convinced of the undesirable effects Disney will have on their kiddos.

• The dislike the common parentlessness of Disney characters, whether due to kidnapping, deceit, or death. They think this will have a negative emotional impact on their kids.
• They dislike the commercialism. The demand Disney supposedly creates in kids for toys and clothes and games and other stuff.

For a while, back before L was born, I pondered this heavy and hard. And for a while, I sort of bought the argument that a bunch of stories that began with dead or out-of-the-picture parents might not be good for a child’s psyche.

And then L was born. And as she approached toddlerhood, I realized how outright difficult it was going to be to avoid Disney. I thought about how my earliest movies were Disney. Sleeping Beauty. Bambi. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Alice in Wonderland. I adored those movies – especially the musical pieces. I had them all on little 45 records too, the kind that came with a storybook. I would play the 45’s on my little Fisher Price record player and sing along to the songs at the top of my lungs in my bedroom. 

I also realized that everything is commercialized, from Matchbox cars to Thomas the Train. Everything. It’s pretty much inescapable if you ever go into any store, anywhere. Was I going to avoid taking L into Target for all of eternity? Um, no. Not likely.

Finally, I thought, What’s the big deal? I grew up watching Disney movies, and I wasn’t scarred by all the parentless characters. Because let’s be realistic. They’re animated. I knew none of it was real. In fact, all I ever took away from those movies was the idea that love wins. And it does, doesn’t it? If you have Jesus in your life, then the indisputable outcome is that love wins. Not fairy-tale style with princes slaying dragons, but still. We all get to live the biggest Happily Ever After of them all. So what’s the matter with movies that proclaim love wins? There are some other positives as well, like strong female characters and the idea that we all make mistakes and that there is usually an opportunity to make things right. But mostly, it’s the love wins piece that sticks.

And then I thought, if L wants to wear a shirt with Belle’s face on it, so what? If it’s not a Disney character, it’ll be Elmo or Curious George or even Hello Kitty (who doesn’t even have a TV presence). Does it really matter so much? Do I really give a hoot if she has an animated character on her jammies?

And I decided that I was fine with having Disney in our house.

Last week, we finally saw Frozen. E ordered it from Amazon because he didn’t want L to miss out, which I thought was sweet. We all snuggled down on the couch to watch it together, and L loved it, especially the music. As I tucked her into bed later that night, she said, “More Frozen, mama?” I assured her we’d watch it again later.

But here’s the thing: I’m not getting on my soapbox to tell the people who are not doing Disney to give it a rest. What I’m saying is that whatever you choose for your children, if you’re doing the best you can, it doesn’t matter if you decide to Disney or not to Disney. If you are making it out of bed in the morning and wading your way through the meals and the messes and the mountains of laundry and the dirty diaper parade, you are doing GREAT.

This weekend, I met a mom who attended a baby shower for a friend, and at that shower, the friend’s mother-in-law stood up and gave a little speech about how according to the Bible, it’s a mother’s job to educate her kids at home. She basically said that unless you are homeschooling, you suck. That if you are sending your children to public school, you are damaging your kids for life. And that sweet, hardworking mama who knows that she is just not wired to homeschool and therefore says daily prayers of gratitude for the hardworking teachers who are shepherding her kids’ schooling felt called out and persecuted and figuratively stoned for her choice.

Yuck, right? That mother-in-law (who is obviously also a mother) may not have intended to make anyone at that shower feel bad about sending their kids to public school, but her words cut at least one mama quick and deep.

Now, I personally don’t buy that mother-in-law’s particular interpretation of the Bible’s stance on education. But homeschooling theology aside, what the Bible does say and what I do buy is that we need to mind our words, because they are among our most powerful weapons.

And with that, I say live and let live. There’s no need to hammer together your own soapbox and take a self-righteous stance on Disney or cloth diapering or breast versus bottle or homeschooling versus public school or anything else on Facebook, Twitter, your blog, or in any other public forum unless your goal is purely to offer encouragement to others and you craft your words with the utmost care because in the process, you could make someone else feel bad about the fact that Cinderella is saving their sanity daily. And we are all in this parenting gig together.

We need to be bubble blowers, not bubble bursters.

We need to be cheerleaders, not critics.

We need to be lovers, not haters.

We need to deliver superhero capes, not take them away.

We need to do our part to make sure that love wins.

Blessings,

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