Mark's Blog

I went to Barnes and Noble on Saturday and bought a copy of Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.  I grew up first reading the book, then seeing the movie, but I suspect that for my children and grandchildren, if they read the book, it will be after they see the movie—and why not? I hope our children can grow up without feeling like there is competition between these very different media.  Ice cream and strawberries are not in competition.  Anyway, I’ll let you know about the books later; for now, let’s continue looking at what to talk to kids about after seeing the current movie. 

Disney’s animated Alice was based on the first book when Alice is a very young girl and full of spunk. Tim Burton’s story finds Alice engaged to be married and torn between what she wants and what others want for her—not an unusual situation for young women.  The following ideas may be more for parents of young girls to think about and parents of older girls to talk about. Use your own judgment!

1.       “Whhhooo are you?” This, for me, is the defining question about this Alice.  Her adventure in Wonderland is all about a search for the “real” Alice.  I just heard Scott Adair at Harding University give an extraordinary lecture on our own adolescents and emerging adults, all of whom are engaged primarily in trying to figure out who they are going to be.  What would happen if we parents were to occasionally simply ask , “Who are you?”

2.       “You’ve lost your Much-ness.”  I can’t forget this moment of truth! That our culture encourages girls to lose their muchness is well documented. Strength, intelligence, independence, imagination, basic integrity are abandoned in favor of popularity, faux dependence, and physical sexuality at the expense of emotional sexuality. (If you want to read more on this, you might try the classic Reviving Ophelia by Mary Pipher.)

3.       Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast!  As Alice begins to define herself more clearly, she discovers strength in this adage she remembers from her father.  She begins to believe that she can do things that she previously thought were impossible. What are the “impossible” things that your kids could do if they believed they could?  Adding a sincere belief in what God could do through them would be even more defining, wouldn’t it.

4.       The Courage to say “No.”  The most important word here is probably courage, but one of the most difficult expressions of courage is saying “no” to what friends expect them to say “yes” to. Alice’s ultimate expression was rejecting her arranged marriage and launching out on her own voyage. Maybe your starter questions would be: Do you ever have to tell your friends you don’t want to do something that they want you to do with them? . . . . What do you say to them? 

I raised the question at the LST office a couple of weeks ago as to what today’s younger children confront in which they learn that because they are Christians, they will have to say no and be different from some or all of their friends. When I was a child, we had long lists of things we couldn’t do, but almost all of those taboos are gone now. Nevertheless, somewhere, somehow, kids need to learn to step out of the crowd and make strong Christian choices.  How do you teach your children to be strong?

I’d love to hear your stories of teaching, preserving, nurturing “much-ness” in your children/grandchildren.