The Man in the Yellow Hat Phenomenon
Regular visitors to this blog will remember my post about taking the kids to see the Curious George movie. Afterward, our son said that he liked the books better, swelling his mother's heart with pride.
A week or two after I wrote that post, my mother-in-law sent me a clipping from the newspaper in Rochester, New York. It was a letter to the editor written by a father who had taken his five-year-old boy to see the same show. He complained about how the Hollywood folks had turned a sweet tale of an innocent monkey and the adventures to which his curiosity led him into a love story focused on a jaded man and his thwarted career ambitions. I found the writer's perspective interesting but didn't go much beyond there philosophically.
Not until today, anyway, when my boy sat me down on the couch with "Curious George Rides a Bike." It had been some time since we'd read any books featuring the plucky primate, so free association took my mind back to that letter. As I read, I focused less on the monkey than on the Man in the Yellow Hat, studying his role in the story and his facial expressions, trying to learn as much as I could about him.
What I noticed is that I didn't have much opportunity for observation. Early in the book, the man presented a gift, laid down the ground rules, and disappeared. And that's when the fun started.
In the end, of course, the man returned, but not exactly to bail George out. The two come back together through happenstance, not through any intentional effort on the man's part to rescue his charge.
I thought about the 1950s version of the Man in the Yellow Hat as a parent, and about the Rochester father's dissatisfaction with the recent movie's elder-centrism. And then it hit me--that shift in focus is representative of the way so many of us parent today. We spend a lot of time navel-gazing (look! I'm doing it now!) with the aim of figuring out what WE need to do to raise our kids superlatively--with the BEST education, the MOST advantage, the GREATEST start in life. We spend a lot of time deciding how to orchestrate our kids' development and think very little about what our kids NATURALLY want because it will help them develop; that is, free play, attention, and answers to their questions.
I don't know about you, but I get awfully wrapped up in what I'm doing or not doing well as a mom. I make the movie about me. And it's so not about me.
Mr. Rochester is right. The Man in the Yellow Hat ought to get out of the way and let Curious George have his day.
A week or two after I wrote that post, my mother-in-law sent me a clipping from the newspaper in Rochester, New York. It was a letter to the editor written by a father who had taken his five-year-old boy to see the same show. He complained about how the Hollywood folks had turned a sweet tale of an innocent monkey and the adventures to which his curiosity led him into a love story focused on a jaded man and his thwarted career ambitions. I found the writer's perspective interesting but didn't go much beyond there philosophically.
Not until today, anyway, when my boy sat me down on the couch with "Curious George Rides a Bike." It had been some time since we'd read any books featuring the plucky primate, so free association took my mind back to that letter. As I read, I focused less on the monkey than on the Man in the Yellow Hat, studying his role in the story and his facial expressions, trying to learn as much as I could about him.
What I noticed is that I didn't have much opportunity for observation. Early in the book, the man presented a gift, laid down the ground rules, and disappeared. And that's when the fun started.
In the end, of course, the man returned, but not exactly to bail George out. The two come back together through happenstance, not through any intentional effort on the man's part to rescue his charge.
I thought about the 1950s version of the Man in the Yellow Hat as a parent, and about the Rochester father's dissatisfaction with the recent movie's elder-centrism. And then it hit me--that shift in focus is representative of the way so many of us parent today. We spend a lot of time navel-gazing (look! I'm doing it now!) with the aim of figuring out what WE need to do to raise our kids superlatively--with the BEST education, the MOST advantage, the GREATEST start in life. We spend a lot of time deciding how to orchestrate our kids' development and think very little about what our kids NATURALLY want because it will help them develop; that is, free play, attention, and answers to their questions.
I don't know about you, but I get awfully wrapped up in what I'm doing or not doing well as a mom. I make the movie about me. And it's so not about me.
Mr. Rochester is right. The Man in the Yellow Hat ought to get out of the way and let Curious George have his day.
posted by Lisa Strandberg at 8:30 PM
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