The Kid

Recently I attended a men’s workshop where we watched a movie called The Kid. It starred Bruce Willis and I was surprised that It didn’t even show up on my radar. I think he does great work. But this is about the cool insights I got from the movie not a review on his acting.

He played Russ, a 40 yr old, rich, single, high powered image consultant who was a cross between a jerk & a lonely, self absorbed, well… jerk.   One night his 8 yr old self comes into his life & the games begin.  The movie was a comedy and the duo were hilarious.  But there were some valuable lessons sprinkled throughout this movie.

There was such a contrast between this lovable kid & this grown up who was so cynical about life that everyone started asking what happened to him.  How did he become the facade that everyone only knew at arms length?

Then I noticed something about the relationship he used to have with his dad. As a child he was scared to even make a mistake around his father and thought of himself as a loser at least until he got to college, where it was all about making the grade so he could get a job “telling everybody else what to do.”

It turns out that so much, positive and negative, that we experience in our childhood (and don’t even remember) shapes us and makes us who we are. I asked myself questions. Am I patient enough with my children who already seem nervous for no good reason? Am I too strict? Did it take me this long to learn “simple” things? Was my nose always that snotty? LOL

The movie drove the point home though.  Kids don’t need to have their short comings & mistakes held up in front of them like a mirror.  They don’t need to be scolded for every impropriety or shamed into doing what is “right”.

Unless we want to produce another generation of adults who really don’t feel good about themselves and fear authentic relationships like the flu, they need to be patiently guided, shown that its okay to mess things up occasionally and most importantly loved, loved and loved even still in spite of their mistakes.