Every year, at least once, I get the wild hair to introduce my children to some kind of classic.
This has taken on many forms, but is usually contained to movies or shows now, after the disastrous outcome of trying to make them all sit around my phone together and listen to an audiobook together as “quality time” every day during the quarantine period of the pandemic.
They count that specific use of time one of their upbringing’s most egregious tortures.
I thought it would be so “Little Women” of us in my mind.
It ended up being much more “Wentworth” in that bedroom than I expected.
At first, it was a casual thing, the way I tried to bring it up this round.
I was just sitting in the recliner when I innocently suggested to my 12 year old, Paige, as she played a video game, that maybe we could watch The Goonies together.
Her head spun slowly to me like she could not believe the atrocity that she was hearing.
“Uh. I think I’m busy FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE,” she and her rolling eyeballs answered.
Long live the preteen. Am I right?
She has never even seen it.
This was a point that I calmly raised, and she informed me she had “seen clips of it on Tik Tok.”
Ah, Tik Tok: Informer of All.
It was clear then that I had to bear the mantle of my generation and all those who have gone before.
She needed to know about all of the greatness Tik Tok never told her about,
and it was my duty to inform her.
From that day on, I have made getting her to watch some of the true greats my 2024 summer mission.
After trying as hard as I could to get her to agree to The Goonies and failing, though, I set my sights on
The Princess Bride.
We all know that is at the top of any Must-Watch list.
If she never sees that movie, I feel like I have failed.
There are many things we as parents need to teach our kids, and the absolute bangers from the 80’s and 90’s seem crucial.
I cannot allow that “but the graphics are so weird” mindset to dwell in my home.
I will fight it like any other form of evil.
It is my job to shape my children into respectable humans, and having to make a study of shoulder pads, young Tom Hanks, and awkward hair is a part of it.
Also of note: I will ground them if they ever again laugh together over The “Cringe-level” of The Neverending Story.
I let it rest for the afternoon, though, building up a notes list in my phone full of fantastic movie titles.
Troop Beverly Hills?
Big?
Overboard?Ferris Bueller?
Uncle Buck?
I had shown her those before, and after scrunching up her nose at first, she had loved all of them.
She must have amnesia when it comes to my track record.
I even put a post about it on Facebook and friends made their own suggestions.
Later on, one of them showed up at our door with a Princess Bride card game called “Prepare to Die,” because my people understand this very necessary education.
She took the box in her hands and narrowed her eyes, glancing at the back of the box to read it.
HER: “Oh yeah. This has to do with that guy in the movie that says that one thing…”
ME: “Hello, My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. PREPARE TO DIE!”
(Said with perfect accent and passion)
HER: *unblinking, judgemental stare*
“OK. First of all, WHOA.”
*palm to me*
“Holy Gen-X possession.
I think everyone here – MEANING YOU – just needs to take a deep breath and calm down a minute.”
This is where I held back informing her that I will die on this hill,
and I can actually quote the entire movie.
I toyed with hosting a Gen-X party where we all take parts and quote things like in a round to her, with the alternate idea of also including costumes.
I thought about topping the time I volunteered my husband to dress as “Chickanique” for the entire weekend and go away with the fourth grade class to cosplay as a Russian Settler by handing him some matted rat costume I had rented for the cause, and telling him that showing up on all fours as a R.O.U.S. was about to be his latest assignment.
I thought I’d won when I simply switched gears and tried, then, to start with a movie she might be more personally into.
Baby steps are a thing even with this. Maybe I could start her off more gentle.
I thought, “Sports! She loves sports!”
And I looked up and started Jerry McGuire.
Only…I had not looked at the rating, and we were a mere 5 minutes in when suddenly
everyone on screen was naked.
She did the same head turn in that moment that she had done in the beginning of it all,
and I knew I had better cool it.
She had a point, I guess.
So, I forgot a few things about some of the old movies from my childhood.
“I’m…uh….going to turn this off,” I said to her, scrambling for the remote.
“You had me at ‘Hello” she coyly smiled.
“You’ve seen this movie then?”
“No,” she smirked.
“I just saw that quote from it on Tik Tok.”
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
