The childhood books and stories we heard a a child have lessons we can use to this day. There was a always a lesson hidden in these children stories, but as children we were more focused on the entertainment aspect. This will be the blog where I break down some childhood favorites and reveal what the lesson should have been and how we can apply it to our lives as adults.

The Blue Print for the Toxic Man: Peter Pan

Another famous story is Peter Pan. Oh Yes! The great story of never growing up, but then again some people never really do. Obviously as children we just felt like we could relate to the boy who comes on adventures and never grows up, but in reality he was avoiding maturity and responsibilities. Peter was also out here breaking hearts because he was looking for someone to take care of him forever. Peter Pan was an asshole in training. Wendy was out here looking for a king, because she knew that eventually she would have to grow up. Then here comes Peter giving her false hope that they would end up together in order for her to keep giving him what he needed.  He knew he had all these girls fawning over him and he took that for granted and let it go to his head. He has

Wendy telling her emotions to him and yes he was hear her but he wasn’t listening. Sound familiar? You know what happens when you tell a boy how you feel and all of your baggage? He uses it against you or gets you to feel so comfortable with him so you would be wiling to do anything for him. He did the bare minimum (taught her to fly) so Wendy would think he was digging her once she was in deep he stopped. Then this poor girl is left settling for his childish ways. NO relationship whatsoever. He sure did get relationship benefits out of her but it was on his terms. Not shocking coming from the boy who wants to remain a child forever and play games. And as the woman Wendy was preparing to be, she had to make the decision of whether to accept his behavior or keep it moving.

Tinker-bell isn’t off the hook either. She has been playing that mother role to Peter hoping he would change for her. You would think someone her age would know that you can’t change a boy, especially one that doesn’t want to be changed. Think did so much for him and he still went looking for more because he wasn’t satisfied. Tink is a perfect representation of putting emotions before logic. Doing that can waste time and leave one stagnant.

And don’t even get me started of all the girls fawning over him and the fact that he knows it. There’s nothing worse than a guy knowing that girls want him. He had mermaids and an Indian named Tiger lily competing for his attention. No wonder the boy didn’t want to grow up. But let me tell you something about TigerLily….This girl is Mrs. Independent. She knows what type of dude Peter is, and yes she plays along but she knows the game oh too well. Once you know the game, you can actually enjoy it. Use that info the way you want.

Bridge to Terabithia: Gender Roles and bridge to maturity

One more story we can learn from it Bridge To Terabithia. You ever noticed how gender roles and their expectations are engrave in our heads beginning at childhood? In this book both of the main characters liked doing things that were not expected from them. The boy like doing art which is often labeled as a girl activity, but can you blame him? He’s being raised in a house of woman and a dad that didn’t care about anything but work. Jess (the boy) father represents a lot of men in society who have toxic masculinity. What’s so wrong about your son wanting to bring out his creative side? No because you had “fears” and are so stuck in your ways and want your boy to be the typical boy.

The lesson we should take from this story is the fact most genders are going to want to participate in activities of the opposite gender and it shouldn’t be big thing, So what a girl wants to do sports and a guy loves to draw. Who is it hurting? The other takeaway is that it takes a special person to help us progress further in life. Leslie came in and helped Jess for the good, but is that surprising. It always seems like a woman is bring a man back to reality. She helped him realize that he needs to be a man when it comes to helping with his little sister and standing up to bullies. Losing her brought him to that conclusion. Woman fixing a man. Shocker! He was off crushing on their teacher, when Leslie was literally helping him and it took her death for him to realize that.

Remember that saying: “you don’t realize what have until it’s gone”. Yea that was his lesson and he had to swallow that pill. Don’t be Jess, well I mean except the growing up and doing what you love despite your gender part.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories: Is there such thing as an happy ending?

One story that I remember was “Haroun and the Sea of Stories”. The story was about a boy going on an adventure or you can say the journey to becoming a man. He endures so many obstacles and he meets many new faces along the way. One of the characters he meets is a walrus who talked about happy endings and the meaning of them. “Happy endings must come at the end of something, If they happen in the middle of a story or an adventure, or like, all they do is cheer things up for a while,”. What we can learn, or at least consider is that happiness and a happy ending is temporary and gives us short term satisfaction.

There is sort of falseness in a happy ending. I’m not saying the “happy endings” are unrealistic. Personally I believe the idea of happy endings are artificial, because not everyone gets them. Somehow there’s some sort of falseness in a happy ending. The artificial happiness was illustrated in the story very well. For example, in the way they got the name back or how everything was kept the same throughout the entire story. The circumstances that the characters were dealing with at the beginning of the story is where they remained until the end. There was an instance where a police man also mentioned a happy ending in the story. One of the characters, Salman Rushdie, was going against what was expected of readers which was for there to be a turn at the end rather than things being resolved.

So I did some thinking, do things ever get better and do we get happy endings, or do we just come to realization that there are things in life that we won’t like and we eventually get use to it.

The biggest take-way that I remember is the ending, it strikes me as appropriate for the overall logic of the novel. Throughout the entire book there was the need for balance for things: like for the character Gup and Chup, Day and night, and much more. The communication was off at times which may have left us as readers, confused. Not only did this book show how powerful speech was and what would happen if it was used in an unexpected way, it also showed what expectations of false endings does to readers and people in general with any situation and I believe that this is a lesson that we all need to stumble upon.

I believe that is one lesson we should remember and it is that the idea of “happy endings” makes many have unrealistic expectations.

The older I get, the more I realize how big of an influence, our childhood, in particular the things we read, has on our lives. Those lessons could in fact prevent us from heartache, mistakes, and even prep us for disappointment. There are so many more stories that have lessons in them and they’re actually very amusing. Maybe I’ll make this Part one. I hope you enjoyed. Like and Share.

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