We Are Family
“Yours can be the mum, Mummy, because you’re the Mum. And mine will be the baby because I’m the baby.”
We have a lot of books depicting all types of families, but the simple fact of the matter is, the overwhelming majority of children’s media promotes the traditional nuclear family concept: Mommy, Daddy, and Baby are clearly the main components of the family unit. One of the fun things about being part of a less than traditional family structure is watching how the standard taxonomy is often co-opted and manipulated to fit the experience of family the child understands, rather than those that are more commonly described. Regan has obviously internalized the accepted construct, but she’s clearly applying it according to her experience, in which family is a very female affair:
“And Bina’s can be the Daddy. You know, the girl daddy, because she’s a girl.”
Comment by Kate
awwww dats so cute.
Posted on December 6, 2007 at 9:37 pm
Comment by Sandi
Sadly my son makes me be the baby, my daughter the mommy and he’s the daddy, “be I’m not sick”. His father’s illness has had such an impact on his young life. He still can’t grasp our new, unconventional family without his father present.
Posted on December 7, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Comment by Jen
While I do agree with you that many children’s books do depict the “traditional” nuclear family, it wasn’t until I had a child of my own that I realized that most Disney movies and cartoons show children with only one parent. Go back and remember all of the Disney movies you’ve seen, even those that I could think of with two parents had a non-traditional family structure for a good portion of the movie: Sleeping Beauty was removed from her parents and raised by three women; Simba of the Lion King ran away from his parents and was raised by two male characters; Mowgli of the Jungle Book was orphaned and raised by an adopted family. I have to give Disney a hand in showing alternate families in a relatively decent light.
Posted on December 10, 2007 at 11:09 am