Inherit The Force

Jordan found this little piece of awesome (I believe it is called a “onesie”) at Baby Gap in the Galleria. She didn’t get it because it was like $25, which is more than we spend nowadays on clothes that we wear. But it raises an interesting question. Will my kids love Star Wars as much as I did?

I mean, I’m a lawyer who has a Millennium Falcon replica atop my office bookshelf. I have a Darth Vader cookie jar on my desk. I still have dark, twisty nightmares about Star Wars. And even then, I wake up loving—nay, adoring— the film.

As a kid, I had an R2-D2 night-light. Star Wars bed sheets. Various pistols and light sabers. I even remember the Star Wars-themed birthday cake I had at age five. All the toys I had then are gone, but the love remains. I couldn’t catalog for you all the ways I loved those first three Star Wars movies, but the fond memories are all there inside my head. I couldn’t escape them if I wanted to.

Is that something I want my kid to share? I’ve always assumed I would introduce my kids to the Star Wars universe. I even knew that I would force them to watch them the way I did: episodes 4, 5, and 6 FIRST. Then, if they don’t mind having their new heroes ruined and destroyed, they can see episodes 1, 2, and 3.

But now, after reading this, I question whether I should endorse the movies at all:

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away—circa 2006, at our old house in D.C.—my husband and I let our little boys watch Star Wars. Eli was almost 6 and had just broken his leg. We were housebound, antsy, and despairing. In a moment of weakness, we turned on Star Wars. We figured, like most indulgences, that the movie would thrill and then pass.

Wrong. Our younger son, Simon, who was not quite 3, couldn’t sleep that night or for many nights over the months that followed. He was obsessed. He talked about the movie to any relative, friend, or baby sitter who would listen and plenty of shopkeepers who wouldn’t. He relived the trash-compactor scene. He worried over Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Jedi sternness and Darth Vader’s glittering malevolence. He sniffed out plot twists in the rest of the endless six-movie saga (who knows how) and tried desperately to work out why Darth Vader could be Anakin Skywalker and Luke’s father—and could also cut off Luke’s hand. Here’s a little girl sweetly summarizing the Star Wars plot. Simon wasn’t sweet. He was feverish. He was short-circuiting. Thanks to our two hours of stupid indulgence, Paul and I concluded, his neurons were melting.

…

During Episode 1, in the throes of Simon’s initial fixation, I happened to be interviewing child psychologist Edward Zigler. In the middle of a conversation on an entirely unrelated topic, I veered off into my family’s Star Wars woes. I was confessing to Dr. Zigler, but in that rueful way that’s really a bid for absolution. Instead, on the other end of the line, I heard only silence. And then he said quietly that indeed I had erred and that Simon probably shouldn’t watch any more movies with violence or even suspense, for, well, years. Here’s a 2007 study from Seattle Children’s Hospital that links violent screen images to aggressive behavior in boys (not girls) ages 2 through 5.

I’m kidding, of course. There’s no way my kids won’t see Star Wars. But I agree that age 3 is a tiny bit early to be schooled in the Force. Still, it’s never too soon to introduce my offspring to the  bizarre world of Star Wars marketing and toys. Just today I came across these water toys and kites inspired by various Star Wars space ships.  What kid wouldn’t want to float these things on sea and air?

Yeah, my baby isn’t even born yet, and already I’m thinking of ways to poison his/her brain. With any luck, I’ll have a girl, she won’t even begin to get sucked into George Lucas’s labyrinthine stories of rebellious youth and courage and… lasers. She will be appalled at the wretched dialog and wooden acting. She will happily devour Harry Potter books instead.

Who knows how a new generation will perceive Star Wars’s mighty empire of movies and toys and video games? Not me. And really, given how bad the last three movies were, I’m not so sure I care whether the kids like Star Wars or not. As long as I can learn this trick, I’ll have all the Force I need.