I am one of those parents: I don’t like my children to watch a lot of Television. There are too many commercials for things I don’t want them to want, let alone have; and there is too much yelling. Every once in a while I’ll turn them on to ‘something with animals’. PBS is okay, I guess, since I can’t really argue with Sesame Street. Of course, hypocrite that I am, I myself love to watch lots of things. Television is the flame, and I am the oh-so weak-minded moth. Which is why I recently found myself hypnotized by Andy Garcia’s Modigliani rendition; unnecessary, since I own the movie and know it practically by heart. Nonetheless, I was unable to turn it off, even when my daughter sat down next to me.
She joined me during Modi’s deathbed: he is lying in a hospital room, surrounded by teary friends, as well as his very sad Muse. He speaks his last words, he dies, and she screams his name. “What’s wrong with him”? My daughter asks immediately. Oops, she’s still here. Now what? I decide to be honest, and tell her he just died. “I’m glad we’re Jewish”, my daughter comments. “We don’t get to look at dead people.” I explain to her that the man on the screen is just an actor pretending to die, and that the real Modi died back in 1920. “Why did he die?” she asks. “Tuberculosis, and too much wine” is my answer. She thinks about that a little, then says: “Boy artists usually like wine too much. I think girl artists drink milk instead, because I am an artist. And I like milk”. Well, glad we settled that. Only a six-year-old can jump in one conversation from death-by-Tuberculosis to the advantages of drinking milk.
I think about our conversation later, and wonder what she processed. Should I have turned off the television, and avoided this conversation? Will she have nightmares because of my bad decision? It sounds cliché, but death is a part of life; she’s going to have to learn about it somehow. Seeing someone on Television die might not be the worst way to start “the talk”; it’s not exactly a topic that is easily introduced while doing the laundry or during breakfast. Sometimes opportunities present themselves out of the blue; it is up to us to go with the flow. She knows death exists; we’ve buried four goldfish this year alone. Too many bad consequences have been attributed to Television in general; I hardly think she’ll drop out of college or become a teenage bride because of fifteen scary minutes.
I realize I wouldn’t have asked these questions 100 years ago. It is only during these modern times that we are capable of sheltering our children from everything difficult. Although this is born from a genuine desire to protect them, and allow them to remain innocent for as long as possible, I don’t think we always do them a favor. Innocent does not need to mean ignorant, and while we don’t have to give them a play-by-play about everything bad that can ever happen, we also don’t need to shelter them to the point of thinking life is a complete fairy tale. There, I justified my actions. My daughter can watch Modigliani die, and for that matter, know all about Vincent’s suicide and Pablo’s bad character. Real people’s lives can lead to educational discussions about real life. As long as she doesn’t watch Hannah Montana, I think we’re going to be okay. After all, we have to have some priorities.
