Happy Ever After

This weekend, seemed to be a Cinderella marathon. At one point it was me, the girls, the dog and my seventeen year old lad. As we watched the old cartoon version, and then the more modern version, I dropped in some Bible teaching truth here and there as I do. 

You know, how magic seems enticing, fun and harmless but actually it's dangerous and to not be tempted by. Also the classic 'looking at the heart', not outward appearances, the kindness of some people, yet the true ugliness of others', and in the regards to Cinderella's step mother, what going after money can do to a person. I'm pretty sure not all step moms appreciated their Disney sterotype. It does feel a little unfair. But it's all so wonderful, because of the music. In fact, one of my favourite Disney songs is 'Mother knows Best', sung by a kidnapper, in an emotioanlly abusive way, but it's just so chipper. 

The 17yr old suggested we just watch the film, without some moral shaping along the way. I reminded him that he probably knows quite a lot of gospel teaching, because I used to do the same with The Incredibles and Bottle Top Bill when he was little. 

Sometimes it's a wonderful thing when my little people repeat back some of my teaching, and sometimes its a pain in the bum. I remember the same 17yr old precociously telling a babysitter that it was wrong for her to 'promise', because her 'yes should be yes' and her' no should be no'. I also remember, possibly with the same sitter, that when she said she would put some magic cream on my child's hand, that same 17yr old responded, "we don't have magic in this house". One of my kids once blurted out to a dear friend of ours, "you're on our unsafe list". We didn't have an unsafe list, we just had three people that my kids could get in a car with, or open the front door to without question, and we called it our 'safe list'. And of course, that one kid who stripped down butt naked, to tell a babysitter she was not allowed in his room to put him to bed, because he was keeping his private parts, private.

But today, with my drip drip drip approach to teaching into stuff, my daughters did me proud. They stated that Cinderella and the Prince, had kissed before they'd even found out each other's names. Cinderella had given away her kiss so quickly. Then, when prompted by me, (and a possible blog post), they were on a roll... 

Ariel and Cinderella changed who they were for a man. Aladdin changed who he was. He lied about himself, and to himself in order to be accepted. Now we have also had the chat about leaning in to someone elses preferences, and not causing that person to sin, but to change who you are completely...no! Ariel gave up her voice, (her voice!) for a man she didn't know. Pocahontas fell in love after one song, and that's not even mentioning some moral wrongs of that film. Anna fell for the first man who paid her any attention and was caught up with True Love, without knowing what it was. Until of course she herself showed it, by giving her life up for her sister. (Spoiler alert). We do love to talk about sacrificial love. It sits with the gospel quite well. And don't get us started on Hans... not a good man, not good at all. But there was that cute song about sandwiches.....

The girls said that it was good that Anna built up a friendship with Kristoff; they laughed a lot and went on adventures together, but he does 'tinkle in the woods'. Cue girlie giggles. Belle stayed with someone who was incredibly mean to her, after being quite a head strong woman to start with, realising that Gaston's arrogance was not what she wanted. They do find it hard to find fault with Belle. I mean, that dress! Moana was actually able to have a friendship with a guy, without everyone asking questions about them. An important one, especially in church life; we are brothers and sisters in Christ. In Tangled, Flynn was a bit full of himself, with selfish intentions, until he built a friendship with Repunzel, and ultimately sacrificed his well being for her's. Aurora fell in love with the man she woke up to, who was kissing her. Erm, that's a no. Elsa actually seems happy to be single, and use her giftings and her creativity without waiting around to be rescued by some guy, and Snow White lived with seven men! 

Don't get me wrong, we will contimue to love all of these films, and sing a long to them regularly, but there's always room to highlight an element or two that seems a little off. In a previous post, we looked at perfect Princess hair, we also chat about body shapes. I mean, those tiny waists!! Did they all have to be modelled on me? We also looked at the men and how handsome they had to be, to be deemed a worthy 'hero', otherwise they were just 'the funny one', and overlooked. We looked at how their daddy loves me, and the good qualities of their brothers (yes there are some, I had to remind them) as well as what the Bible says about how people should act, and whether people are putting God first.

I'm happy to have some of my teaching points come back and bite me, but I'm also happy for wisdom to be dripped in and for opportunities to chat stuff through. Last night we watched some episodes of Friends with the older two. They know we disagree with the sexual immorality of the programme and how pornography is just seens as a 'joke'. I don't perhaps interupt what they're watching quite as much as when they were young, but we did have an open discussion about surrogacy, IVF and abortion after one of the episodes. And some of that I think, is because we have set the expected openess during these kind of chats over the last seventeen years, which started with The Incredibles and is continuing it seems, with Disney Princesses.

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect".       Romans 12v2