Taking one for the team

I’m pretty sick of Back to the Future myself. I know it’s a classic movie, but I’ve never been a big fan (despite a childhood crush on Michael J. Fox). Wood Sprite is obsessed with it, as was her father at a younger age. She wants a DeLorean. She actually has two Hotwheel DeLoreans already and is getting the Lego version for Christmas. But she also wants clothing like Marty McFly wears and to be Doc for her homeschool science fair (she can’t; fictional scientists are against the rules). I’ve been honest with her and told her it’s “not my thing,” and it immediately wounded her.

“Why don’t you like it? Why do you hate Marty McFly?” she demanded, as if I’d said SHE wasn’t my thing. By not liking her interest, I had somehow come off as not liking her!

“It’s just not one of my interests,” I told her. “But I’ll check it out with you.”

So I’m oohing and ahhing over Back to the Future dioramas (which were actually pretty cool, but not because of the subject matter) and listening patiently about all of the different time continuum scenarios she presents. In some ways, I think it’s cool (though I’m not a fan of the language or sexual innuendos she’s seeing at age eight, something that her father didn’t think about when he introduced them to her!) because of the science and we’ve had some good discussions about bullying, too. That doesn’t change the fact that I am sick of Back to the Future, but it’s her interest so it’s my job to help her explore it the best that I can. And after all, SHE is my interest, so that makes pretty much any subject fair game, right?

How about you? What interests have you had to feign for your kids?

Image courtesy of Wikipedia