Where The Wild Things Are: Missing Fathers And Lost Children

Where The Wild Things Are: Missing Fathers and Lost Children By Jed Diamond, Ph.D. Contact: [email protected]

www.MenAlive.com

My wife and I saw movie, Where the Wild Things Are, last night. Carlin wanted to go because it recalled earlier times reading the story to our children. But we found the movie deep and dark, offering important insights about missing fathers and lost children. Where the Wild Things Are is a 2009 American fantasy film directed by Spike Jonze and adapted from Maurice Sendak's 1963 children's book of the same name. The plot involves Max, a young boy, who enjoys an active fantasy life. He builds an igloo in the snow and tries to entice his older, teenage sister Claire to play with him. A snowball fight ensues with her and her friends, but when her friends jump on the igloo, destroying it, Max is very upset. Claire stands by, says nothing, and then leaves with her friends. Max goes into a fit of rage, stomping snow around Claire's bedroom and breaking things. A series of events make it clear that Max feels neglected by sister and his divorced mother, Connie. One night, just before dinner, Max throws a tantrum in front of his mother’s boyfriend. Max’s mother tries to restrain him, but Max bites her arm and runs out of the house to a nearby shore where he finds an abandoned sailboat. After several days of sailing he reaches an island, which is home to large talking beasts (the wild things). Max sees they are in the middle of an argument. One of the “beasts” complains that he is all alone and no one understands him. Max approaches them. They consider eating him but he convinces them he’s a great king with magical powers capable of bringing harmony to the group. Upon hearing this

they crown Max their king. KW, a wild thing who had temporarily left, returns to the group. Max’s adventures continues from there. First, let me say if you’re considering taking your children to this movie, you might want to think twice. Two little boys in our local theater who appeared to be in the 6-8 age range screamed and cried throughout the movie. Beyond the fact that there was a lot of violence in the film, it the boy’s cries might be touching something deep in the male psyche. From my view as a psychologist who specializes in men’s issues, this is a movie that says important things about males in today’s world. Max is a boy without a father surrounded by women (his mother and his sister). “Absent fathers” is a reality of much of contemporary life. Though we have come to accept it, much damage results when children (particularly male children) are raised without fathers. David Blankenhorn, in his book Fatherless America, says “Fatherlessness is the most harmful demographic trend driving our most urgent social problems, from crime to adolescent pregnancy, to child sexual abuse to domestic violence against women.” We get a feel for this in the movie when Max’s mother is afraid of Max’s angry outbursts and can’t easily contain them. He bites her and when she responds to his anger with anger of his own, he runs off. I see this kind of behavior a lot in the families I counsel. An overworked, single Mom trying her best to take care of herself and her family, just can’t handle a young male. A good father would have been able to empathize with Max, take constructive action and allow his anger a constructive avenue of expression. I’m not blaming mothers here. They are doing the best they can. We must do a better job with keeping our fathers involved in their family. It was not long ago that fathers were an important presence in the family, but now they are disappearing daily.

“The United States is becoming an increasingly fatherless society,” says Blankenhorn. “A generation ago, an American child could reasonably expect to grow up with his or her father. Today, an American child can reasonably expect not to.” This is true of children in other countries as well. As Max escapes to the island of engaging monsters, he is made king by “monster adults” who themselves have never grown up. Everyone is looking for the lost king, read “father” who can make things all right. Many young boys try and step into the shoes of the absent father, trying to become the man they have never learned to be. But you can’t replace fathers in our culture with a woman trying to be father and mother, or with a live in boyfriend. The result is that you have a nation of siblings hungering for someone to appear who seems to know what he is going. We long to find love, acceptance, and nurturing, but instead turn on each other with frenzied violence (as Max discovered). Poet and author Robert Bly understood this. In his book, The Sibling Society Bly begins with these words: “It’s the worst of times; it’s the best of times. That’s how we feel as we navigate from a paternal society, now discredited, to a society in which impulse is given its way.” He could be talking about Max and millions of other boys, Peter Pans, who never can grow up. “People don’t bother to grow up, we are all fish swimming in a tank of half-adults.” These are the “monsters” Max encounters on the island and the half-adults we all encounter in our lives every day. Before Bly social historian Alexander Mitscherlich recognized our modern dilemma. “Mass society, with its demand for work without responsibility, creates a gigantic army of rival siblings.” “Adults regress toward adolescence,” says Bly, “and adolescents— seeing that—have no desire to become adults.”

We need to find new ways to understand and change our sibling society to one that honors adults. There is much wisdom to be found in Sendak’s book as well as the movie. I look forward to your comments and questions. Contact: [email protected] www.MenAlive.com