Sunday, August 19, 2012

How sad is too sad?

I took the kiddos to see "The Odd Life of Timothy Green" this weekend and let me just warn you; I cried like a baby for about 45 minutes.  Not just sniffles, this was full on tears running down my chin, snot coming out of my nose and the lady next to me looking at my weird crying.  Now both my children said they did not cry, but their eyes were suspiciously red when we walked out of the theater.  Should I have taken them to this movie?  Was it too old for them?  I am still debating both of these questions.  As most of you probably assume (SPOILER ALERT) the child "dies" at the end.  But my kids wanted no discussion about it.  We came home and they went about their day as if nothing happened,  Do we, as parents, make too big of a deal about this stuff? The movie was good, I am just not sure if it was that kid friendly. 



Then I started thinking, when we were kids we all had those movies that made us cry, and I don't remember it ever being a big deal.  ET, Old Yeller, Pollyanna, and so on I remember fondly and never thought they were inappropriate.  I think sometimes we are so worried about protecting our children that we don't realize how well they can handle the big stuff, if only we would let them.

So what were your sad movies you remember as a kid?  Am I right about this stuff not staying with us as adults or are you ruined because of these sad movies?

2 comments:

Bob said...

ET definitely, though I wasn't exactly a child. And I do remember crying a wee bit after seeing Old Yeller on TV.

Recently, it was The Help that made me weepy.

Unknown said...

My toddler loves Old Yeller. Its my hubby who cries every time.

Someone else wrote about The Help. That one makes me cry.

And there is a scene in The Patriot when Mel Gibson is leaving and his daughter says "I'll say anything" if he doesn't leave. It gets me every time.