NYTimes.com: I had that declension on my mind from the moment my wife and I decided to take our children — Penn, 15, and Hattie, 13 — to the fiery new Broadway production of “Virginia Woolf,” starring Tracy Letts as George and Amy Morton as Martha, his wife. It’s a witty but sinister play, stocked like a nightmare bodega with adult themes. Were our teenagers ready for it?
8 comments:
I'm of the mind set that parents have to be just the right amount of afraid to show your kids sensitive material. If things slip through the cracks it is okay. Kids are going to see it eventually and better that they see it with their parents so that they can ask questions and know what really is going on. I also think sharing things like that can bond children and parents, it is frightening on both sides and so it can make both people more aware of the other. Also from personal experience being exposed to movies, shows, and music, that were meant for people above my age, meant that I could still do kids things but could pay attention to what was happening in adult world as well. It allowed me to have a grasp on the outside world.
I think that children should definitely be exposed to challenging material, even at seven and eight years old. The author said he felt horrible about making his son cry at a movie, but at the same time, kids really do need that. Kids can be raised in a bubble, and it's fairly easy to tell the difference between kids raised in a bubble, and those that were exposed to a bit of the "real world" via movies, live theatre, and music. The worst thing a parent can do for their child is to raise them in a bubble; mostly because they aren't able to emotionally and intellectually handle rough situations when they face them in actuality. Experiencing these sort of challenging cultural experiences also gives children a greater empathy for people who go through those situations, and that empathy will be built in and useful later in life. I remember reading "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" when I was 15 years old, and I throughly enjoyed it. Kids are ready to handle rough topics a lot earlier than parents like to think, and by no means should they never be exposed.
This article makes me smile. My parents took me to see and do so many different grown-up things when I was a child. When I was little, they exposed me to many of the move-versions of the golden age of musical theatre, e.g. Oklahoma!, The King and I, and The Sound of Music. We went to see a production Annie for my birthday. A year or so later we took a trip to Pittsburgh and we saw two productions: My Fair Lady and Funny Girl. My Fair Lady was a standard in our household, buy My Fair Lady was new territory. Since up until that point I hadn't been exposed to musicals that were any less than fun, my parents prepared me for the experience. We watched the movie and talked about it. Obviously, Funny Girl is no Virginia Woolf, but there is a fair amount of at least implied illegal activity, sex, and general sadness (if you don't cry during Barbra's My Man at the end, you probably don't have a soul).
Funny Girl was an important milestone for because it was the first real step in my gradual induction into the world of adult content fileld media. It also marks another important milestone, but that's another story. After Funny Girl my folks started to show me more adult plays, films, and musicals. Aside from the general brain-expansion this provided, it also made me feel special and mature since my parents were happy to take me places where I was the youngest by at least a decade (much like Mr. Garner's kids). I think that helped me strive for maturity as a child, which improved my analytical brain as well as my work ethic.
When deciding what mature cultural material to expose their children to, it seems that parents face a choice between educating and enlightening their children and giving them an inaccurately scary or crass representation of the world that will mar their perception of it. Really the key to preventing the later from occurring is communication. If after watching a particularly adult show such as Virginia Woolf the parent opens up a dialogue with their child, making it clear to them that this is not the way most couples function then a potentially negative experience can be transformed into a positive one. Teaching children to appreciate cultural artifacts at a young age can heighten their ability to think critically about offensive material instead of being afraid of or morbidly obsessed with it. If fact, experiencing “adult” material with children can sometimes open up channels of dialogue that might otherwise be impossible.
This article makes me smile too! Its extremely refreshing to read an article about the positive impact theatre has on the younger generation. I know I would have been nervous about taking my kids at this age to see a show with this much content. When I was younger, I saw CATS and OLIVER and shows of that standard. I think VIRGINA WOOLF may have been over my head. This speaks a lot to the time that we're living in and that even over the past ten years the standard of child appropriate content has changed. Younger audiences are exposed to harsher material at a younger age and are therefore less shocked when shows like VIRGINIA WOOLF are shown to them.
How refreshing to read an article that takes the more liberal side of this issue. I have been seeing a constant increase in conservative views on children's exposure to such culture, and it always makes me sad. My childhood was very similar to that of these two kids - my parents were never afraid to introduce me to content that most would consider rather above my age level, but I always enjoyed it. I, too, have had my fair share of times when my sister and I were by far the two youngest people in the theatre, but yet in all of these cases, there were definitely people in the audience who got much less out of the shows than we did. To me, it all depends on the attitude the parents take towards it and the way the children are brought up. I was brought up to keep an open mind and to question and investigate anything I didn't understand, and this view of the world taught me to learn a lot more and more quickly than I would have without my liberal upbringing that I am incredibly thankful for. I hope more parents will come to understand how educational and simply good for their kids these challenging cultural circumstances are.
My mom always took me to everything at the theatre even when I was really young. She figured that by exposing it to me in a structured setting where it was presented tastefully as "art," I could be educated both artistically and exposed to mature subject matter in a controlled environment. I'm talking about when I'm around 10-12, though. In this article, he discusses taking his 13yo and 15yo children to Virginia Woolf. And I hate to be the one to break this to him, but very little went over their heads. If it were a movie, it would have a PG or PG-13 rating at most. Yeah, there's some profanity and they suggest some sexual acts offstage, but it's pretty tame by today's standards.
On an unrelated note, it makes me sad that a 13yo and 15yo were the youngest people in the house. BRING YOUR KIDS TO THE THEATRE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.
I think that taking kids to all different kinds of shows is definitely a great thing for parents to do. First, to expose kids to theatre of any kind gives them a culture that many miss out on. Most kids are use to going to the movies for fun, but to bring them to live theatre is just a whole other world. We don't know the impact a show could have on any one person, but that is part of the charm. Some could be too adult for them, but then the parent gets to have a moment with them after the show to discuss things that may not have come up otherwise. I think most parents that take their kids to theatre in the first place are pretty open to the ways of the world. This exposure if you will, allows their kids expand their horizons and not just focus on everyday things. Some of the messages one gets in theatre are life changing, so to get to experience that with your kids is priceless!
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