Trying to Understand

by Lynn Beck

George how could you?? But we can forgive George he made the statement...."this is to not be done at home"...or something to that effect.

I guess poor George was a star of a movie and got blamed for causing (?) children to leave the theater and walk into walls. I have not witnessed this so I am just going by what I read. I heard some parents were really upset by this.

I would be rather upset also if I took my child to a movie and he walked out of the theater and walked into a wall. My first reaction would be..."are you on drugs???". If my child assured me that he was not on drugs my next reaction would be..."why???" "What possessed you to walk directly into a wall?" I would keep on asking until I got an answer. I would accept a lot of options..like even..."I felt like it." I would want to understand why my child felt the need to walk into a wall. If I did not get an answer that I could personally accept, I would take my child to a doctor. It would keep bothering me until I got the answer to 'why'. The last thing I would do is blame the theater, blame the actors, blame the movie, or blame the production company that produced the movie. It would never occur to me to do so.....unless one of them was holding a gun to my child's head and saying "either walk into the wall or I will shot." Then I would blame someone other then my child.

When my son was small he had this habit of falling, not just falling down, but climbing on the furniture and then just falling off of it. He did always make sure his path was clear and that he did not fall onto anything. He also somehow knew how to do it without getting hurt. He loved it. It was a hard habit to break. When I did get him to stop climbing on the furniture he would then run and jump in the air as high as he could, then fall. He just loves the sensation of falling. He did not see this on TV or in the movies. He discovered it on his own. He still loves the sensation. You can find him at bungi jumps! So you can see, I do understand what it is like to have a child that in my opinion does weird things.

This is not the first time that a movie was blamed for someone's actions. We are a society that blames everyone and everything but ourselves for our actions. What I find hard to believe is, why does the blaming of what we watch becoming so common place. I can see 'some' children saying, "I saw it in a movie" or "I saw it on TV" but what upsets me the most is that the parents are doing the blaming. They are yelling at the movie and all who have anything to do with it.

Why is not someone asking...."what would posses a child or adult to do something they see in a movie". Does not anyone know the difference between real life and fantasy? Why are we not taking the time to find out the 'why' to this dilemma? I know it is easier to blame someone else but this is another individual that if we are doing the blaming we care about. If I cared about someone who just walked into a wall for no good reason, I would put a lot of effort into finding out why they did it. Why they deliberately did something that could hurt them, kill them. Are we so afraid of death that we forget to teach our children that they can die?

I am sorry, but, lets get real. I would seriously be worried if it was my child doing the walking into walls. I would worry about what would be next. Walking off of buildings? Jumping out of windows? How about driving a car over a cliff? I've seen it done in the movies.

I really think that it is sad that an actor in a movie has to go public and make an announcement like George did. Personally, if I was George, I probably would have said, "Parents, please, teach your kids the difference between real life and fantasy before someone else gets hurt."

Sorry, call them as I see them.

I find myself lost and confused again with what society throws at us. If you can explain it to me. Please do!

Lynn Beck 76504.1030@compuserve.com, is currently recovering from internet withdrawal caused by a sudden total system crash of her computer. She was only allowed email due to CompuServe maintaining a substandard way of logging on so that she was at least able to stay in touch with her way outdated second computer. Visit her home page at http://members.aol.com/lbeckworld/