For the first time in quite a while I watched “The Breakfast Club”
This film released my junior year of High School. To most people my age this was film was ‘our voice.’
Most people I know can tell you who they identified with in the film. They were either one of the leads or some combination of 2 maybe with just a hair of the third.
Most people also agree on one important fact. Ally Sheedy was hotter before they made her up at the end.
But watching the film I was especially struck by one passage.
“So this is it. We’re going to turn into our parents?”
“It’s unavoidable”
“Why”
“When you grow up, your heart dies.”
I suppose one has to understand that to get the motivation of the characters that they all pretty much come from actively abusive households. The only exception maybe being Claire who only has to deal with parents that seem to be adversaries… which in its own way is mental abuse.
I think there’s an interesting psychological question of how abusive situations can occur and further how they manifest themselves on the children.
Alison hazards the rather scary sentiment that ‘growing up’ is akin to the death of the heart. Or maybe a perception that the opposite is the definition. When the parent seems to no longer have life or care… they’ve really become a ‘grown up’
The movie opened a lot to me. My own ‘teenage-angst.’ The mental abuse of my parent. Looking at myself now as I go thru difficult times as I enter my 40s. Most importantly, being the best father in the universe for at least one child.
But I guess.. what I really have to remember is not to let my heart die.
I looked back at myself as part Brain part basket case. But like the end essay learned that each of them and their issues live within me.
I’m not perfect. I once told a friend in High School, I didn’t want to be perfect. Perfect people scared me and it was probably for the best if we tried to get rid of them.
I want my child to be the best that he can be. But I don’t want him to go mad, fear me, destroy himself or others in the process.
I just hope I don’t do either. My hope is trying not to prove that Alison’s perception; that “unavoidably.. I will turn in to my parents.” Isn’t true. And that at my core. I am and will always be my own person who can learn, grow, and be better than what came before me.
It’s a stunning film. And I’m pleased that I can still find lessons in it that don’t cheapen the experience.
I will do my best to afford my child (and those that may come after) a nurturing environment that will let him learn, grow, and be better than what came before him.
« No, really it’s more than just clicking links… Memetime: A return to being a vermin? »
I think that, knowing that, you will do fine.
When I overhear
my parents conversations
well I’m struck by the things they say
it seems they traded the years
for mere complications
who ever thought it could end this way
they close the door
but they can’t lock it
’cause something of their childhood remains
and they’ve felt it before
when the man in their pocket
counted the cost of their material gains
Children say – come what may
be strong for the friends you’ve known
but one fine day – (not) far away
will we remember the love we used to own
Children say – children say
we open our minds as one
as one more day slips away
why don’t the dreams of the young never come to be
I love you.
Just remember that the ideals of parenthood that you’ve brought into this process are probably going to be challenged by unexpected realities, and you may not always live up to those ideals. That won’t make you a worse father, that will make you a human father.
And if your son has any insight at all as he grows, he’ll understand, if not immediately, then as an adult.
You’re doing fine. The baby is too cute!!!
BTW, I think most Thelemites are too weird to turn into their parents. Weird is good.
try watching “Home Alone” again. It feels totally different when you see if from the parents’ perspective.
if you don’t mind feedback from a CPS worker….
I think that you and your lady will do just fine by Aiden! The very fact that you are mindful of hearts-death, of the perils of living a life on auto-pilot rather than with meaningful intent, and the deep empathic bonds you show every time you speal of your son – all these things tell me that you are, and are likely to remain, a good parent. Not a perfect parent, mind you (and I agree with you about the dangers of ‘perfect people’) but one who honestly has his child’s best welfare in the forefront of his mind while retaining a healthy life for himself and his partner.
I believe in you, Andre!
and I, too, love the film…. I was a “baby bat” in those days, a little Goth girl before it was fashionable to do so.
Thanks for posting this. That movie meant a lot to me when I first saw it, and I never even registered the “turn into our parents” as a potential reality. I worry more about it now. 😉
What makes me sad is how glaringly we see the faults in our own parents and how someday maybe Alexander will see me… as a horribly flawed person whom he “survived” being raised by– whether I hurt him in the same ways my parents hurt me, I’m bound to hurt him somehow. Gods willing, not nearly as much as I was hurt– but I do fear this.
My one, my only goal, is that I give him what the Breakfast Club kids (and me, and you, it sounds like) didn’t get: the sense that he is loved wholly and completely, that there’s room for his individuality and that his views are as valid as mine.
Consider this, good father:
I recently watched The Breakfast Club *with* my son. Talk about an eye opener.
He recognized how difficult things were for those people, but did not relate to them regarding their relationships to their parents (or at least one of his parents). I hope that this does not change.
So, I would say from some experience that it is avoidable. But the concepts are still worth sharing, if only to illustrate to your boy the nature of his good fortune.
Take Care, Jon
As I looked upon those that raised me, this is all I could see
Golden Years
Yellow roses stained red
By the broken hearts of innocence
Sleeping almost alone
In a satin grave
Praying for passion
Entombed in silence
Bound and fettered by love
Of declarations of consistency
Hiding emotional dependency
Passion eroding to dull complacency
And resentful stares of steely eyes
Or a life of possibilities
That has long passed by
The echoes of laughter
Only a memory, the bonfire of love
Now cold gray dead on the alter of sacrifice
In the temple of your heart
and one day
The morning sun finds you,
With glistening crystal tears
Reflecting rainbows thinking
This is love?