5 Kids’ Movies That Should Definitely Come With a Warning Label for Parents
You know those movies that you loved as a kid, but you watch after becoming a parent and suddenly they’ve become really, really traumatizing? Seriously, I move that there should be two separate ratings for kids and for parents. Here are a few examples of movies that really need to come with trigger warnings for parents:
1. Mary Poppins
Whether you are on day one or year 18 of parenthood, this movie is guaranteed to make you feel like you are, or are going to be one horrible scab of a parent. I couldn’t find the clip where Bert tells Michael “Your father loves you very much”, but this one sums it up pretty well too.
2. Dumbo
Is there a more primal fear hidden in the depths of a parent’s (especially a mother’s) heart than that your baby will be exposed to the cruelties of the cruel, cruel world and you won’t be there to protect them? I don’t think so.
3. Monster’s Inc
Maybe it’s because my daughter is kind of sort of this age right now (Boo’s age seems to be a spectrum of like 9 months to 2 1/2 years old to me). Maybe it’s because I liked big dogs when I was little. But “Kitty has to go now” puts me over the edge every time.
4. The Little Mermaid
Need a painful reminder that one day you will probably be watching your daughter walk down the aisle and out of your life for all practical purposes? Here you go:
5. Toy Story 3:
This one takes the cake. I was so not prepared for the unbridled brutality of this movie towards the parental psyche. A lot of us were kids when Toy Story 1 came out, so the combination of childhood nostalgia plus themes of kids growing up and leaving childhood (and a dependent relationship with parents) behind is like unto spending a feature-length film’s worth of your day getting repeatedly punched in the face. I watched this, for the first time since becoming a parent, over the holidays (we got it “for our daughter”, who was in bed when we watched it). I’m not posting a clip from this one because there is no one scene that encapsulates the utter devastation of this movie: it is a sob-fest from start to finish. It opens with Woody and the other toys performing an elaborate plan to get the 18-year-old Andy to play with them. I cried. They accept that their time with Andy is over and they are headed for the attic. I cried. I just cried and cried the whole movie. Then when my sobs finally subsided to sniffles after the incinerator scene, Andy’s mom comes into his empty room and she starts crying, and says “I just wish I could always be with you.”, and I lost it again. This movie pushes buttons you never knew you had like its punching numbers on a phone. I don’t think I’m old enough to watch it anymore.
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Got more examples? Of course you do. Share them in the comment section.
