The boy lies in bed with the big green muscled man. Big and Green is not radioactive but stuck with a permanent, sewn-on sneer on his plushie face. The boy gets little red marks on his back and arms from falling asleep on top of some of the plastic, mini-versions of Big and Green, his Red and Black Webbed friend, and the (less-muscled but still costumed) raven-haired Lady of Wonder. The boy hurriedly tells his nanny about dreams he has about the “Coop a Ca Bra,” and how the talking dog and his stoner rock companion chased this monster out of his bedroom. He is two and a half years old, and has a collection of comics, books, and toys that some middle-aged folk might be jealous of.
It could be worse. His parents could have introduced him to something awful, like Catholicism or Muppet Babies.
I am the babysitter/part-time nanny of the son of two of my best friends. As a fair-weather fan of things Superhero(ine), I was mostly prepared for the onslaught of character-based products that was sure to infiltrate their house, and my life, as this boy got older. The groupings that happen on a casual basis in the living room these days are like a diversity festival on a college campus circa 1993 mixed with a Cronenberg medical thriller gone wrong. For example, Spiderman’s head, long-since separated from his rigid plastic body, shoved onto the ends of two 1960s-era Fischer Price Little People. The new creature, wobbley as s/he is plastic, crouches, in a way, on top of a pile of Happy Meal Batmans plucked out of one of those big bags of plastic toys that one can buy at the thrift store for $1.50 (a tip – empty the entire contents of the bag into a pot of boiling water and sterilize before playtime).
My excitement at the fantastic storylines that babble out of my young charge as he creates and re-creates new heroes and creatures is tempered by my own problems, namely, my Mr. Peabody-esque, know-it-all tendencies. His parents, in contrast, are pretty low-key about most things. Much of his Incredible Hulk collection was passed down from his Uncle Terry in Canada, and there’s a lot of stuff that is handmade, well-loved, unique, and at this point, mostly ignored by the boy in favor of dirt and rocks outside in the yard. The parents have a playful attitude in general, and have helped him decorate his room with a mixture of recent DC Comics propaganda posters picked up at a ComiCon (and advertising some Superman/Wonder Woman series that none of us, including the boy, really give a crap about), whiteboard walls filled with drawings and messages from his many relatives and admirers, and handmade Hulk posters that he has improved with his own drawings. Their own living room is filled with books and its own collection of esoteric weirdness (a series of posters tacked to one wall that all came with various albums – including a scantily clad Prince that I’m unsure the boy will ever notice, even when he gets older and perhaps becomes a Prince fan), and there doesn’t seem to be an aesthetic boundary between one room or the other. His toys resemble their toys. His place is their place.
In short, the entire house is a fun place to be, and I can only imagine that it is one of the best possible situations that a kid could have. Hopefully the boy’s memories of childhood will include hanging out and watching movies in the backyard, playing records with his many faux-aunts (myself included), and devouring stacks and stacks of books, comic or not.
Returning to my problem, my know-it-all itchiness – I find myself constantly correcting when I should be embracing. I hem and haw over sharing old, racier issues of Black Canary, rapidly pointing out the feminist nature of her affairs/relationships while old Prudey Aunt is really thinking “His breast fetish is starting now, at 2 ½, and I’m contributing to it.” I get frustrated, silently, when watching the new Scooby Doo episodes that he has recently learned to cherish. Velma and Daphne are cooler than they used to be, and the writing is sarcastic enough to tolerate, but the animation and even the plotlines (!) lack a certain clunkiness that I crave in my talking dog mysteries.
I know the kid is at a very early stage, and that next year, he may drop the mainstream-cartoon-worship in favor of walruses or stacking things into towers and then knocking them over. Actually, he likes both of those things now. As a caretaker, faux-aunt, and provider of at least 5% of this boy’s introductions to comics, culture, music, and the arts, how can I silence my critic, enhance the childhood he has rather than try to complete my own long-gone childhood, and learn to grin and bear it as he inevitably discovers The Flash or some equally ridiculous capitalist fantasy? Hooded U. parents/caretakers/guardians, what say you?
I think you should just embrace your cranky inner critic. (No one is surprised by this, right?) I constantly tell my son that whatever piece of pop-culture detritus he’s into is crap. He just tells me I don’t know what I’m talking about. We’ve had strong disagreements about Garfield, for example.
I’ve talked to him about racism in Tintin too. Or in other things when it comes up. He’s 7 now, so that’s somewhat older than your charge, but overall I don’t think it hurts anything to say what you think about that stuff. My son generally just thinks it’s funny when I disagree with him.
And, maybe more importantly, if I couldn’t point out how lousy Garfield is, I would go insane.
I have a 4 year old daughter and an infant son. The 4 YO is, against my reservations, a glittery-fairy princess-girlygirl type who, thanks to her slightly more mainstream-savvy neighbors, is now singing Justin Beiber. I don’t know what i did in a former life to deserve this, but I know that if I push too hard, I will just force her into the opposite direction. To be fair, she also digs in the dirt and dances in the rain, just wants to do so in a twirly dress. So I am embracing the “Yes, AND ALSO THERE ARE THESE…” approach to making her a feminist geek, or at least getting her to appreciate the variety out there and letting her find her own path.
There is comic-related artwork in the house (A Distant Soil and Strangers in Paradise prints, fanart related to specific shows or just general fantastical stuff) around the house. Her father, less fannish than me but still an 80s child, is getting her into Transformers (the original series), and we’re planning to sit her down with Episodes IV, V, and VI this summer now that she has a better attention span.
I think we’ll wait on Elfquest until she’s a little older and can handle serial work. But until then, I’m starting to question her on shows and books and such – I point out that Princesses, some of them, grow up to be QUEENS, and now she’s drawing Queens and Princesses. One of the first stories I co-drew/authored with her was about a Princess defeating a dragon with a sword and a good dragon, and inviting the good dragon in for tea. And I look for books with female heroines or other subversions.
I think you both have a good approach. thanks! this boy has so much input at such a young stage that I have no doubt he will see many, many sides of gender issues, politics, feminism, and all the stuff that is sometimes harder to teach/discuss with the youngin’s before he is in the “hole myself up in my room with my comics & stop talking to stupid adults” stage.
For now, most of the stuff that my charge doesn’t see is generally because we think he’ll find it uninteresting. He is really adamant about learning and using new words that he hears, though, so the bigger issue around the household is certain nannies keeping their almost-unconscious swearing in check.
Always happy to hear comic-related reading suggestions for the toddler set, so keep ’em coming if you’re inclined!
Lyonside, have you seen the Enchanted Forest series? They’re chapterbooks, so might be a little old for four, but I would recommend for the princess obsessed. Very strong female protagonist…who is still a princess! What could be better than that? (My son actually really liked them.)
You might try the old WW comics too, Lyonside. Also princesses, also strong female protagonists. Lots of bondage, though — but what the hey. It didn’t hurt Gloria Steinem.
Have you seen the Mo Willems books, Salem? They’re awesome; just right for two-year-olds I think.
I never realized I hated Garfield until Noah’s son started to love Garfield. It actually caused some alienation in our relationship I feel (entirely from my side). Thus revealing some of my own issues I should work on.
Thanks Jim Davis, for caring enough to suck.
Alienation in Bert’s relationship with my son, I think he means. In Bert’s defense, it was pretty brutal. Not just the having to read Garfield, but the constant repetition of Garfield jokes told with stuttering and repetition and mangled punchlines. Over and over and over. Ack.
Luckily the Garfield stage appears to be over. He is now obsessed with the How To Train Your Dragon books, which are actually quite entertaining, with lovely scratchy expressive cartoon drawings. A huge improvement.
I, for one, also hate Mondays and love lasagna, but I can feel your pain, gentlemen, indeed. Noah – did you ever show him the Garfield Minus Garfield series?
Yep, we did Garfield Minus Garfield. I really liked it…he was ambivalent.
The aesthetic pleasures of “Garfield Minus Garfield” are pretty rarefied. (Compared to the original, it’s like “Waiting for Godot” vs. Neil Simon.)
“Ambivalent” is actually quite a step up from what Joe and Jane Average would think: “That’s stupid!” “That’s not funny!”
Bert, I just re-read this:
“Thanks Jim Davis, for caring enough to suck.”
…and spat some coffee out in a Danny Thomas double-take moment. Thanks!
Noah, I’ll definitely check out the Willems books. The charge really likes busses so that Pigeon one looks just about right.
I’m excitedly anticipating the day (maybe 20 years from now?) when I can introduce the http://kathyack.tumblr.com/ series to him.