Sci-Fi Parenting

Regulate what your kids wear -- especially red and blue pajamas in public

Spider-Man taught us about the benefits of science. Did you know that genetically manipulated spider venom can make you stronger, faster, and cooler, especially if you are the super-scientist school nerd? Really. The sticky hands thing could be a side effect of the venom or the result of peeping in your next-door babe’s window. Time will tell on that one, if you let it. The good news about Spider-Man is that there are two separate parenting dynamics in play, both that need examination.

Our Children: Peter Parker is a scrawny nerd who gets abused by everyone from the school bully to the bus driver. He secretly worships his neighbor Mary Jane but never has had the guts to tell her. Peter is unreliable, forsaking his uncle’s request to help him paint the kitchen to go frolicking about the city rooftops. He lies to his Aunt May about what he is doing in his room and to his Uncle Ben about going to study at the library. His actions and inaction result in his uncle’s death and his cowardice in telling his aunt about what really happened. Umm, being the good guy should mean more than just getting superpowers, right?

Our Parents: Ben Parker is Peter’s uncle and legal guardian, along with his wife May. Ben is recently out of work and a bit down on his luck, but has loving and caring relationships with his nephew and wife. He takes an active interest in Peter’s life in spite of the fact that time seems to have left him by the wayside.

Norman Osborn is a wealthy industrialist and chemist who has built an empire in the defense industry. He has a son, Harry, who lacks the hunger for success that he possesses. He also has an affection for Peter and considers himself a father figure to Peter, being attracted to Peter’s genius-level chemistry knowledge and desire to make it on his own, neither of which Harry has. Norman is a man of great power and questionable ethics and stability.

To bring extra embarrassment upon your children, head out in this garb

The Story: Our hero Peter is the average genius-level dweeb who lacks what we call the social skills. Upon surviving a genetically-altered spider-bite, Peter insults the school bully and then embarrasses him in a fight. Armed with new confidence and combat skills, he traipses around town testing his abilities. His newfound power foments a communication gap between him and his aunt and uncle, fostering lies and deceit. When Peter claims he is going to study at the library (he is really going to fight for money), Uncle Ben tries to bridge the gap by driving him into town and talking along the way. Ben confronts Peter about the beatdown and provides the movie-critical advice that “With great power comes great responsibility.” Peter shuns the suggestion, stating that he’s going to figure it all out. This response from a teenager should not be unexpected. After all, haven’t we all seen superiority complexes developed in other super-geniuses like Wile E. Coyote once they gain an advantage? Ben, clearly disappointed in Peter’s reaction, demonstrates that Peter should have listened by dying at the hands of a criminal that Peter could have stopped. This is an outstanding strategy for parenting. Attaching a memorable event to the lesson is a terrific reminder that your advice should be heeded at all times. Of course, the downside is that you’re dead, so you need to make it a really important point. Don’t use a lesson such as “Don’t chew with your mouth open” with the death stratagem.

Peter and Harry grow closer and move in together. Norman adopts Peter in his own unilateral way, offering him guidance and support. At the same time, Norman is emotionally distressed by drug use and the power struggle at his company and develops a split personality disorder. Eventually, Norman’s quest for power/mental illness and Peter’s acceptance of Ben’s Responsibility lesson intersect. Norman decides to have a chat with Peter, using sleeping gas to set up a private conference. I do not recommend such a tactic. Not only does such physical coercion create deep-seated hatred, but more importantly, it leaves your conversant foggy. If you are imparting your important message to Sleepy-boy, it helps if he is thoroughly conscious when hearing it. Naturally, his message about the public’s treatment of heroes is lost in the haze.

Peter rejects Norman’s request to team up. Norman subsequently attempts to demonstrate why Peter will ultimately fail by forcing him to choose between Mary Jane and his life’s calling. Insolent Peter chooses both, and Norman endeavors to show Peter why he can’t. This type of lesson is better served by life dishing out the results rather than the advisor. Peter cannot accept it in the moment, but Norman forces his hand by killing himself. Again, death provides that reflection where things can be seen with more clarity, albeit this teaching is borne in fear rather than guilt. At Norman’s funeral Peter at last accepts Norman’s truism about the struggles of juggling love and career.

Lessons Learned:

• “I missed the part where that’s my problem.” Overpowering guilt about your death is a powerful memory agent for guiding budding superheroes.
• “Wake up, little spider.” Don’t try to dispense wisdom to your child while he is drugged, especially at your hands. They won’t process anything you tell them and may feel resentment.
• “This is why only fools are heroes – because you never know when some lunatic will come along with a sadistic choice.” While fear can be a powerful motivator, immediate acceptance will be unlikely, especially from someone with spider strength. Reinforce it with something powerful, like death.

Thanks for reading, and see you next week.

Impress upon your child not to negotiate with anybody who owns a zombie monkey

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was a huge surprise hit, starring Johnny Depp as Keith Richards, Orlando Bloom as boredom personified, and Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Swann, the pirate-loving daughter of the governor of Port Royal. During this frantic, everyman (and woman) for himself brouhaha of a movie, we get to see Governor Swann’s fathering directly impact the history and stability of the British Empire in the Caribbean Sea.

Our Child:

Elizabeth Swann, the daughter of Weatherby Swann, moved to the Caribbean with her father when she was 12 years old. She sings sea shanties, staring aimlessly off bows of boats at the open water. When she first encounters young Will Turner, she steals a family heirloom from him. She keeps this medallion as a symbol of her ongoing ownership of the poor, smitten lad. She is a terrible negotiator, possessing the upper hand but unable to gain everything she can. Her actions cause great expenses in time and money to her father and his colony. Lastly, she is a repeated liar, even playing out her wish of marrying young Turner to the point of falsely taking his name. By the end of our tale, she has almost completely adopted all of the negative aspects of pirates: double-crossing, lies, a lust for golden trinkets, and an anti-authoritarian attitude.

Our Parent:

Governor Weatherby Swann, governor of Port Royal, is a dedicated single father raising his daughter. When she is younger, he is fast and firm in his decision-making, ordering her about with confidence and strength. As the pressures of his job and raising a courting-age daughter without much choice of men with deserving stature mount, his parental decision-making conflicts with his career. He chooses to push her toward the only gentleman worthy of his daughter’s hand in the colony, the esteemed Captain Norrington. When his daughter is kidnapped, he spares no expense in pooling all his resources to rescue her, even setting sail with them to personally oversee the operation.

Our Story:

Make your daughter wear more than underwear in public, even 17th century underwear

On an ocean-crossing move to a new job, Weatherby Swann’s ship runs across the fiery wreckage of a hit and run accident. An unconscious boy, Will Turner, is found as the sole survivor floating on a piece of hull. Governor Swann orders the boy brought aboard and places Will in the charge of Elizabeth. While the delegation of authority may be warranted from a management point of view, placing your tween daughter in charge of anything, especially a contemporary member of the opposite sex, is a huge mistake, especially if you are nobility. She immediately confiscates the only thing of value from the boy and develops a bond that ultimately interferes with Weatherby’s attempts at noble matchmaking. Once she is placed as the boy’s caretaker, she incorporates an authoritarian attachment that compromises her judgement. On top of that, this boy’s life is ruined, as Elizabeth will have him at her beck and call until he dies. Come to think of it, this may be why Will has a bit of a death wish.

As it turns out, young Turner has a questionable family background; his father was a former gang member. Instantly, when placed in the presence of anyone remotely dangerous, Elizabeth steals and deceives. Knowing the medallion indicates that he has something to do with his less-than-upright heritage, she immediately deceives Norrington by saying all she found out was his name and hides the evidence. So not only did Weatherby shackle this boy to his daughter, but he also put Elizabeth together with the rogue element that puberty-stricken girls are drawn to. It is impossible to prevent your daughter from ever encountering these enticements, and may be even worse to preclude her interest in them. But what Weatherby did was essentially sanction her fascination, and ultimately this is the worst thing you can do. Any future argument would end with: “You told me I was in charge of him.”

Ultimately, the former owners of the medallion, a violent, waterborne gang of ne’er-do-wells, return to collect it. As a course of vengeance, they wreak havoc and nearly destroy the town in their search for the gold. Elizabeth agrees to meet the leader of the gang to negotiate a settlement. She trades him the medallion for the cessation of aggression against Port Royal, but fails to include her release as part of the deal. Given her apparent enchantment with the lawless type, it is unclear if she is dimwitted or conveniently forgot to mention it. The gang then takes her away to their home base.

Norrington, Turner, and Governor Swann are all distraught over Elizabeth’s disappearance. While Norrington and Swann prepare an extensive sweep of the area, Turner, unable to function without Elizabeth’s direction, seeks out a recently incarcerated gang member, Jack Sparrow, in his desperation. Sparrow, with the malaise that the genius possess and the insane lament, devises a scheme to steal the navy’s fastest ship with Turner’s assistance.

After Elizabeth’s rescue, the Navy takes on the gang in a battle to curb the thieves’ operation. All told, the destruction of one ship and the loss of men add up to a huge expenditure to find the girl, which ultimately would come back to the governor. Don’t allow your child to put your family’s fortune at risk, especially by empowering her to negotiate terms dealing with your career and income. Instill in her the idea that she cannot nor shall not speak for you, especially during negotiations with hostile opponents.

Lessons Learned:

• “I’m watching over you, Will.” Try not to ruin other people’s lives with your parenting, or create unnecessary symbiotes with your child.
• “A pirate’s life for me.” When you push your child toward anything, you are signing off on it being OK. Don’t sign off on pirates of any sort (except the Pittsburgh kind).
• “I’m disinclined to acquiesce to your request.” Never let your child speak for you. Odds are something horrible will happen, like your child being kidnapped by gold-loving, murderous zombie-ghost pirates.

Thanks for reading, and see you next week.

Early GPS

Normally, I would not skip movies within a series, but this will be an exception. The third installment of the Indiana Jones serial, The Last Crusade, is the only installment of the character’s storyline with parental references. And before you begin to correct me, understand that I refuse to acknowledge any part of the series that happened after nuclear weapons have been detonated and refrigerators have been hiding places. And Short Round was more of a personal assistant than a son-like figure.

Our Child:
Indiana Jones, archaeologist, professor, whipper. This man has been stealing all his life from graves, tombs, and religious temples for museums, which pay him for his work. While this may seem honorable on the surface, keep in mind that this same philosophy essentially destroyed the Parthenon among other things. He also obliterates much of that he should be trying to preserve for study, as evidenced by his defacing of a historic Venetian library and the catacombs beneath it.

To his credit, he is quite educated, speaking a multitude of languages and being well-versed in history and anthropology. He also hates Nazis and presumably has saved the world by foiling their plots to obtain powerful religious artifacts. On the other hand, he once shot a guy performing a sword demonstration for him.

Our Parent:
Henry Jones, Sr. is an archaeologist who has chosen a more studious approach to his career than his tomb-raiding son. He maintains a strong religious faith and thoroughly respects his pursuits. He is unimpressed with violent acts and unafraid to do what it takes to get the job done in a civilized fashion, even willing to travel into the heart of the lion’s den to retrieve his diary. His career has always been foremost, ultimately leading him to estrangement from his son.

Our Story:
Young Indiana stumbles upon some gentlemen who are digging for artifacts when they discover something valuable. The impulsive

Demonstrate the dangers of playing with fire to your boy

boy steals it from them and leads them on a perilous chase on horseback and train, not just endangering himself and these men, but also the circus animals on board the train. He even whips a defenseless lion during the process. He makes his way back to his home, where he rudely interrupts his father’s studies. Henry, deeply involved in his work, tells him to wait and count to ten in Greek before he can begin the conversation. This is an excellent example of how to not only teach patience and respect for others, but also for Indy to bone up on foreign language skills he may need later (as it turns out, he needs to be able to count in Roman and read Hebrew). Indy’s patience, forged by Henry’s demand for respect, pays off. Not only does Indy not have charges pressed against him, he is unable to make his father an accessory to the crime. All of that from a short lesson in patience.

Grown-up Indy is recruited to help with his father’s research and picks him up from Henry’s research team’s headquarters in Germany. During their flight from Berlin, Indy and Henry finally have a chance to catch their breath. After years of estrangement, Indy complains to his father that they never talked. Henry responds by asking “What do you want to talk about?” When Indy can’t come up with anything, Henry wonders what he is sore about. This is a critical point. Indy complains throughout the entire movie about his father – how Henry hit him over the head with a vase, how he how has to go back to Berlin to get Henry’s diary, how Henry slept with his girlfriend. It goes on endlessly. Children gripe all the time about everything they can. When your child whines, call him out on it. It will leave him dumbfounded.

After traveling to the final archaeological site, Henry asks Indy to finish the job at hand. Henry has provided detailed instructions in his diary of how to perform the task. Even when he has directions, we can see Indy does not want to execute them. Notice how he hesitates on the first step from the Lion’s Head because he does not trust that his father is correct. Only after following Henry’s exact directives does he succeed. It is imperative that when you ask your child to do anything for you that you tell him precisely what, because his instincts are to believe that you are wrong. Only after several iterations of demonstrating you are right might they listen. And finally, at the end, when Henry tells Indy to leave the precious artifact alone, he complies. Cue the horses and the sunset.

Lessons Learned:

• “I find that if I just sit down and think…the solution presents itself.” Teaching your child patience might just get him a magic fedora that hardly ever falls off and comes back on the wind if it does.
• “You are named after the dog?” Kids will complain about anything and everything, even their name. When your son does this, dog him by telling his friends that his nickname is that of the family pet.
• “You have chosen…wisely.” It may take multiple lessons and being shot to get your kid to listen to your directions, even when his life is at stake.

Thanks for reading, and see you next week.

Fireproofing your son is a good idea

DeLorean. Manure. 1.21 Gigawatts. I can only be talking about Back to the Future, a tale of discovery by a teenager who travels back in time only to be stuck witnessing and influencing events that shaped his (and his parents’) future. It’s got fighting, rock’n’roll, and crazy science…all things quite common in 80’s films. But what can we learn from George and Lorraine McFlys’ parenting skills?

Our Child:

Marty McFly is the youngest of three McFly children. He dreams of becoming a rock musician and thinks he can get there by playing the electric guitar as loudly as possible. He breaks sound equipment without owning up to it and lies to his parents about his weekend plans to go “camping” with his girlfriend. He is so self-absorbed that when the family car is wrecked, all he can think about is his plans for the car, not the impact it has on his family’s finances. His best friend is an aged, time-obsessed scientist who has blown his family fortune on his crazy experiments. In other words, a typical teenager aside from the nutty professor.

Our Parents:

George and Lorraine McFly are high school sweethearts for whom life didn’t turn out so great. George is stuck in a dead-end job working for a man who has bullied him his entire life, and Lorraine is quietly drinking herself to death lamenting the “Florence Nightingale effect” that resulted from her father hitting George with a car in high school. Incredibly, while their first two kids didn’t fall far from the tree, Marty is evidently a pretty cool kid with a hot girlfriend and some musical talent.

Our Story:

Marty McFly, a skateboard-riding musician wannabe, is helping Doc Brown with time travel experiments at a local mall. Doc has obtained some plutonium by doublecrossing some Libyan terrorists in the name of science and has now made Marty an accessory to these heinous crimes (good thing the Patriot Act wasn’t around back then, or the movie might be called Back to the Waterboard). The Libyans, finding the only VW bus in history with a sun roof, respond with machine gun negotiations for Doc. Marty escapes in a DeLorean-housed time machine, only to be vaulted back to 1955, when his parents were teenagers and Doc Brown was a young, budding mad scientist.

In the past, I have advised against letting your children befriend older, crazy guys, especially those that are not opposed to breaking the law. I still stand by that practice, but am going to add an amendment: If the wacko is going to send your child back in time and that turn of events will improve your lives by making you rich and successful, then it is copacetic. Please note that “back in time” clause…I do not support sending a child to stay the night in bed with a wealthy nutball in order to sue him for millions of dollars. And try to figure out a way to reinforce the idea that it is in the kid’s best interest to at least maintain the status quo whilst time-traveling. A standard self-preservation ideal works out pretty well – make sure he carries around a picture of his family to remind him.

In 1955, Marty finds a teenage George climbing a tree to scope out a girl undressing, takes his maternal grandfather’s hood ornament in the chest for his father, and subsequently discovers that Lorraine was quite the persistent vixen when he wakes up in her room. It is this sequence of events that unravels his family’s history – he spends the rest of the movie combating his father’s weaknesses and his mother’s advances. These are the types of things you need to be aware of if you are planning on parenting through time travel. You have to be vigilant all your life for random people taking an unexpected interest in you. These people may be your kids exploring the space-time continuum. That means no peepshows, not letting people bully you, and acting like you want your kids to act all the time. Most importantly, do not make a pass at these people (standard geographic exceptions may apply), unless you want to be singing “I’m My Own Grandpa” some day.

George is quite unmoved by Marty’s pleas to hook up with Lorraine, so Marty uses modern technology (Eddie Van Halen) to threaten

Teenagers dress funny

him with cerebral liquification. Today your child might threaten you with loud, strange noises from a video game or iPhone – same maneuver, different medium. Do not be fooled by these tactics; boisterousness and a better understanding of the latest gadgets should be no match for your authority. Level the playing field and never buy your child anything that you don’t understand the nature of and thus will have used against you in mysterious ways.

Of course, Marty saves himself by getting Mom and Dad to kiss at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance by becoming the major influence for a rock legend. He returns to his rightful time with Doc’s help, only to find that his father is now a successful writer, his mother is happy, his siblings are cool, Doc Brown is no longer aerated, and he has a new 4×4 truck. Mega-happy ending.

Lessons Learned:

• “You built a time machine out of a DeLorean?” Become a famous writer by sending your kid back in time. Pack a lunch full of their existence as insurance against making things worse.
• “Quick. Put your pants back on.” Recognize your child no matter if it is before you have them – you don’t want a loopty-loop in your family tree.
• “You guys aren’t ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it.” Prevent technological terrorism by never providing your children with the tools. Be sure to tell them that those products will melt their brains – they won’t accept it, but it will prevent them from using that argument with you.

Thanks for reading, and see you next week.

Do not use this nanny

The Matrix is a deeply philosophical martial arts film that raised our awareness of the effect that bullets have on the air around them. While you don’t actually see any biological parents in the film, the systemic generation of The One by the overseers of the Matrix certainly qualifies the overseers and thus as proxy the Matrix itself as parental units. And, clearly, the resentment he has for the Matrix could only be inspired by a force as powerful as the desire for independence borne by a growing child.

Our Child:

Neo, neé Thomas Anderson, is a computer programmer who works for a software company. He lacks social skills, instead turning his efforts toward disruptive behavior like hacking into databases and stealing information. He lives in a state of paranoia, using false books for storage and not even opening the door fully for visitors. He is fully aware that what he is doing is against the law but continues anyway. His lackadaisical attitude toward his career has brought him to the precipice of a pink slip; he can’t even show up for work on time regularly.

Our Parents:

Defining Neo’s parentage is a little bit messy, especially only in the context of just the first movie. Because he is an adult, I postulate that the Matrix itself raised him. His innate sense to subvert the system was put in place by one of the creators of the Matrix (as we learn in Reloaded). Once he breaks free of the Matrix and enters the real world, he still needs to return to the Matrix for guidance from his “mother,” the Oracle (which is confirmed in Revolutions). That’s enough for me.

Our Story:

Neo has been spinning a web of crime, amassing a stack of offenses related to hacking. He has gained the attention of both the police and those humans who live to subvert a stable world and cause chaos in the name of “freedom.” Neo shuns the home that his parents have created for him to join his newfound friends who share his penchant for rejecting authority.

In return for this deception, his parents respond by kicking him out of the house in what is a fairly graphic birth sequence. Neo, almost drowning in the consequences of his actions, gets picked up by his friends and lives with them.

There are two ways to look at this. The first is that Neo, clearly of age to be living on his own, should have been evicted for his continuous disobedience. He should have been booted far earlier, and the fact that they did not punish him this severely previously is a testament to poor parenting. Look where it gets his parents – Neo sets out to destroy the very entity that raised him to be what he is and begins to ruin things for the rest of the family living in his now former home. The action is appropriate but too late, so remember to quash the defiance at the first sign of misbehavior in your child. When they live under your roof, they need to follow the rules.

The second viewpoint would be that Neo is only an infant who has been living in the womb until he is “born” into the real world. While this is a bit more metaphoric it is not a stretch to imagine. That would mean that the first act of rebellion starts with birth. Whoa. Guess what that means – the parents started severe punishment right away: leaving him for dead. A bold move, but rather extreme. As a parent, a young child deserves at least a second chance. The level of punishment is also key – anything that can result in death should be reserved until the child can fend for himself, say 5 years old. Even one that isn’t so bright like Neo.

Neo, after a period of living with his impudent cohorts, decides to come back home to see his mother, but only after picking up some

I predict you will not change your facial expression for the rest of your life.

bad habits, like playing with guns and fighting. The Oracle welcomes him back into her home with a smile and some cookies. An ingenious plan if I may say so. He had to be expecting some friction and she disarms him, even letting a broken vase go forgiven. These actions allow her to overcome his defiance with wisdom and thus force him into doing her will through intellect. By the end of the conversation, she not only has told him that is “not too bright,” but she has gotten him to do her bidding through reverse psychology by telling him he is not The One. She has even taught a guy with a Joey Lawrence-level of vocabulary Latin philosophy before he leaves. A master class in dealing with a disobedient child. He leaves there so confused that he will run through a brick wall if she tells him to. The final stroke is that everything she told him would happen does, which is important as a parent: you must prove to your child that in the end you were right all along. This plays a key role in the sequels.

After this Neo is The One and runs his course upon the Matrix…but he doesn’t have a clue that not only was Mom right, Dad was, too. We’ll visit that in the future when I review The Matrix: Reloaded.

Lessons Learned:

• “Mr. Anderson, you disappoint me.” Early corrective action will save you an insurgency within the rest of the household later and keep your program running smoothly.
• “Welcome to the Real World.” Don’t try to kill babies for being born; give them one more chance. If they survive, their mission in life will be to bring you down.
• “The Oracle. She told me this would happen.” Demonstrating that you are all-knowing will breed subservience within your child. Adding noodle-baking questions will confuse them and help them along the path to trusting your every word to the point of self-fulfillment.

Thanks for reading, and see you next week.