Daddy, Snuggling, and Juno
When my youngest hops out of bed in the morning, the first thing he does is join my wife and me in our bed. Since I don’t especially encourage snuggling at such ungodly hours, he has learned to head for the opposite side of the parental equation. Unfortunately for my son, my wife was away for six days this week, and the only available snuggle option was daddy.
Why don’t I like snuggling? Is it because I’m a boy, and so is he? Is it because I’m half asleep at my son’s chosen snuggle time, and his snuggling urge wakes me up earlier than absolutely required? Is it that I’m not tactile? What’s wrong, after all, with a little human snuggling?
I doubt I’m the only dad, stay-at-home or otherwise, who limits contact to the stand-by triumvirate of hug, kiss, and wrestle. The first two are chaste, of course, and the third is some sort of requirement on the part of most boys, a rite of passage that I enjoy only when no one gets hurt. (I therefore spend about 90% of my wrestling energy on cautionary defense, for the sake of all involved.) Snuggling, however…that’s a whole ‘nother ball of wax.
I suspect that in the end, it comes down to my understanding of snuggling as being part and parcel with romance. I don’t snuggle with my friends, regardless of gender––who does? I snuggle with my wife. And that’s about it. No, actually, that is it. Children, no matter how close and loving, don’t get to cross that particular threshold.
Odd, isn’t it? I sing my youngest to sleep just about every night by rubbing his back, and I did the same for big brother for years before that. I imagine that I’ve probably sung “The Connemara Cradle Song,” our chosen family lullaby, several thousand times since the birth of Son Number One, seven-and-a-half years ago, and that translates to quite a lot of back rubbing. I suppose it could be viewed as one-handed snuggling––but not by me.
Whatever the case, I know that in later years, various teens get into trouble with snuggling too early, too often, with members of the opposite sex. Witness the title character in the movie Juno, who, despite her fear and trembling, deliberately seduces her boyfriend and then has the unexpected “pleasure” of dealing with biology’s most dramatic consequences: pregnancy. Of all people, columnist Ellen Goodman has decided to decry this movie as the latest in a string of teen pregnancy flicks that will surely set back not merely the feminist cause but all of Western Civilization.
Foul, say I.
Goodman is generally one of the clearest thinkers in our supposedly star-studded pantheon of syndicated columnists, but here she misses the boat. To complain that Juno ought to offer a more sober view of teen pregnancy is like asking for movies in general to return to being morality plays, as they often were in the days of the Breen Code (and, sadly, still tend to be, especially with action films). Good gets rewarded, bad gets punished, and we all know which is which ‘cos Hollywood has made very certain to tell us so. Goodman seems to think that Juno is actually recommending teen pregnancy as some sort of lark. Not at all. First off, we in the audience are laughing not because we agree with what’s going on but because the proceedings that unfold are so painfully human! We see ourselves in these misfit, desperately insecure characters; we feel their pain, as it were, even as we’re laughing our heads off at their foibles and wit. (That wit, by the way, especially in the case of whip-smart Juno, is all defense––as the movie makes abundantly clear.)
Somehow Goodman didn’t seem to notice that this is not a happy-go-lucky fairy tale ending. As things stand for Juno’s child, newly adopted by Jennifer Garner’s character, whose name I cannot recall, the outlook’s pretty bleak. Mom’s an over-committed professional, so junior is going to be raised by a nanny as sure as ferrets are ferrets. Yes, Juno is one very immature young lady (smarts don’t equal wisdom), but one gets the distinct sense that the child might be better off in her household, with Juno’s quirky but dedicated father and stepmother.
Sadly, Goodman has the bully pulpit, and she’s chosen to exercise it against a non-offender. No doubt she’ll influence millions into castigating this very compassionate, very entertaining film when in fact, it ought to be lauded as one of the few “teen” movies to stare down teen angst with boundless love and clear-eyed affection. Oh, well. At least Goodman gets one thing right: Juno is not supposed to be realistic. Given that she figured this much out, it’s a wonder she bothered to write the rest of her condemnatory article. Must’ve been a slow day in the Topics Department.
Meanwhile, it’s time for me to get to sleep. In the morning, I’ll be woken by the padding of three-year-old feet…headed to the far side of the bed. I’ll feel momentarily guilty about this. And then I’ll go back to sleep, secure in my dad-centric view that snuggling with children just ain’t for me.
Now there’s a topic Ms. Goodman will probably never tackle.
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Sunday, January 13, 2008
