Ways Things We Loved as Kids Screwed Up Our Perception of Reality
Let's face it, children's and young adult literature, comics and shows gave us a certain impression of life. Except of course, it was all a dream. I hated those endings. :P
So without further ado, I present...
Fantasy: When you're the new kid, you make friends the first day of school!
It's the first day of school. You're the only new kid since there's no such thing as overcrowded schools with constant zone changes, and your teacher forces you to introduce yourself. But not to worry; you instantly meet a boy and a girl who will soon become your new BFFs (it has to be a boy and a girl to balance gender dynamics). One of them will have a crush on you, you'll have a crush on them, and/or they'll eventually make out in the middle of a really dramatic scene. Either way, BFFs for life!
Reality: You meet one person and only really talk to them for the entire year until other people get to know your name. Also, the real problem is that the other new kids are five times cooler than you, so they get all the friends. Awkward......
Fantasy: Secret Passages FTW.
If something's old - 100 years to 1,000 years - there's a secret passage. You may need to try finding trapdoors to fall into and hope you don't break a bone or five doing so, or you may need to learn how to speak parseltongue, but eventually, you'll find one.
Reality: i'm sure there are secret passages in some old homes and schools. But the thing with secret passages is that they weren't designed to be so obvious, even a ten year old could find it.
Fantasy: On your birthday, you'll find out you're a witch/wizard/slayer/something or other.
Reality: You're just a normal person. But considering some of the stuff those characters have to deal with, when you think about it, you're probably better off. Do you honestly want to go to Hogwarts/
Fantasy: Bullies have tragic backstories, and if you're really nice to them, eventually they'll admit it and become your friend.
Reality: i'm not going to totally discard this, because in my time at school, I was having problems with one girl who my guidance counselor eventually implied had a bad home life. (Which was probably TOTALLY unethical, now that I think about it.) So is it likely that a lot of the playground bullies were probably just taking their shitty lives out on you? Yes. But their reasons aren't your problem. And also, plenty of bullies have no excuse other than being assholes. There's no Deeper Meaning (unless you consider that their friends are also generally idiots who spread rumors about them), and there won't be any justice later in life, because they're going to Yale, not Subway. Yeah, Bill Gates was the nerd who got picked on, but then you have Donald Trump. People worked for him someday too.
Fantasy: If you say "I wish I could be her, just for one day", it will totes work.
Reality: Let's pretend this is within the scope of possibility and think about that. Another person, someone you're presumably frustrated with if you've had to switch bodies, now has access to every single personal thing about you. Your diary. Really personal secrets. Other people's personal secrets they assume they're telling you, not the other person. It's weird and creepy when you really think about it.
Fortunately, it's never actually worked.
Fantasy: Taking in a sick animal and nurturing it to health is not only a good idea, but works every time!
Reality: I tried this with a sick toad. It died anyway. Instead, try taking care of a stray cat; my grandmother's old neighborhood had a cat that was sort of a half-stray (it belonged to someone across the street, but they never really let it in as I recall), and even though I only saw Pokie (short for "Pocahantas" - my playmate and I had both seen the epically historically inaccurate movie, so we named the cat Pocahantas only to realize it was a boy) a few times a year, it recognized me each time.
Fantasy: The popular girls all have names like The Unicorn Club or The Flamingo Club.
Reality: Remember those girls who really wanted to be cool and laughed like they weren't all there, wore bright purple eyeshadow on their cheeks and made fun of people by going "durrr" at them? Those were the girls who called themselves They were sometimes nasty, but never what I'd call part of the "cool" crowd, though they tended to have friends in the cool crowd. But they were very much on the fringe.
Fantasy: If you sing "I'm so excited, I'm so excited" and then cry into your friend's arms, you won't have addiction problems anymore. Also, dieting either means you're anorexic or diabetic.
Reality: Let's address addiction first. While I understand why a kid's show doesn't want to have a main character get hardcore addicted... addiction is a slippery slope, one that tends to see relapses and denial that lasts a LOT longer than a week. As for dieting, while some diets are ridiculous, there's a difference between dieting, having an ED, and having diabetes. By the descriptions I was given as a child, everyone I know who has to, or wants to, exercise and watch what they eat is either anorexic or diabetic. ALL of those things are far more complicated than that, and you can go into it without being completely morbid.
Fantasy: If you tell people they're mean and not cool, they'll stop being mean and making fun of you for not being cool.
Reality: Okay, I'll admit that worked for me once, but in that scenario I think the girls being mean were really just trying too hard to be cool themselves, rather than deliberately setting out to make me miserable. But the only reason I think that is because saying that actually worked; if they'd really wanted to make me miserable, they would've done what the other girls who made me miserable did and just been even nastier. Telling someone they're not being nice when they're not trying to be nice is like telling someone they're wearing pink nail polish. They noticed, and they like pink nail polish, and now that they know you don't and you've pissed them off and potentially embarrassed them in front of other people, they're going to wear hot pink nail polish every day just to spite you.
Fantasy: Starting a babysitting club will work.
Reality: Well, let's talk about my personal experience.
- There were two members, Claudia and Mallory. I was Mallory; my "BFF" was Claudia.
- Since we were only about eleven, nobody ever really wanted us to babysit for them proper. Instead, one person relented and let us entertain her children while she took care of her baby.
- The day we were supposed to show up, Claudia bailed out because her parents didn't realize she was supposed to babysit that day, and wanted her to do something else. That or she didn't feel like it anymore, I never really worked that one out. (She WAS wearing something that seemed pretty formal, so I think she might have been telling the truth.).
- We disbanded a week later and formed a Butterfly Club instead, also consisting only of two members.
Yeah. :P
Fantasy: You'll all go to the same college/university! Hey, it worked for Cory, Shawn, Angela (I think that was her name?) and Topanga...
Reality: Yeah, but Topanga turned down either Yale or Harvard (I forget which) to make that possible. That actually really sucks.
Plus, sometimes, and some of these books/shows actually do portray this, it's actually best when your friends don't follow you to college, because you end up drifting from them more than if you'd just separated to begin with, maybe because it's more noticeable than if this friend were simply far away. It's one thing to notice a slight change on weekends, another to notice it when you share a dorm room but don't even see each other there very often.
Fantasy: It's a good idea for kids to solve mysteries. The deadlier, the better.
Reality: Yeah. No. CALL THE POLICE.
Fantasy: There is no Mrs. Zarves.
Reality: This one is debatable.
So without further ado, I present...
Fantasy: When you're the new kid, you make friends the first day of school!
It's the first day of school. You're the only new kid since there's no such thing as overcrowded schools with constant zone changes, and your teacher forces you to introduce yourself. But not to worry; you instantly meet a boy and a girl who will soon become your new BFFs (it has to be a boy and a girl to balance gender dynamics). One of them will have a crush on you, you'll have a crush on them, and/or they'll eventually make out in the middle of a really dramatic scene. Either way, BFFs for life!
Reality: You meet one person and only really talk to them for the entire year until other people get to know your name. Also, the real problem is that the other new kids are five times cooler than you, so they get all the friends. Awkward......
Fantasy: Secret Passages FTW.
If something's old - 100 years to 1,000 years - there's a secret passage. You may need to try finding trapdoors to fall into and hope you don't break a bone or five doing so, or you may need to learn how to speak parseltongue, but eventually, you'll find one.
Reality: i'm sure there are secret passages in some old homes and schools. But the thing with secret passages is that they weren't designed to be so obvious, even a ten year old could find it.
Fantasy: On your birthday, you'll find out you're a witch/wizard/slayer/something or other.
Reality: You're just a normal person. But considering some of the stuff those characters have to deal with, when you think about it, you're probably better off. Do you honestly want to go to Hogwarts/
Fantasy: Bullies have tragic backstories, and if you're really nice to them, eventually they'll admit it and become your friend.
Reality: i'm not going to totally discard this, because in my time at school, I was having problems with one girl who my guidance counselor eventually implied had a bad home life. (Which was probably TOTALLY unethical, now that I think about it.) So is it likely that a lot of the playground bullies were probably just taking their shitty lives out on you? Yes. But their reasons aren't your problem. And also, plenty of bullies have no excuse other than being assholes. There's no Deeper Meaning (unless you consider that their friends are also generally idiots who spread rumors about them), and there won't be any justice later in life, because they're going to Yale, not Subway. Yeah, Bill Gates was the nerd who got picked on, but then you have Donald Trump. People worked for him someday too.
Fantasy: If you say "I wish I could be her, just for one day", it will totes work.
Reality: Let's pretend this is within the scope of possibility and think about that. Another person, someone you're presumably frustrated with if you've had to switch bodies, now has access to every single personal thing about you. Your diary. Really personal secrets. Other people's personal secrets they assume they're telling you, not the other person. It's weird and creepy when you really think about it.
Fortunately, it's never actually worked.
Fantasy: Taking in a sick animal and nurturing it to health is not only a good idea, but works every time!
Reality: I tried this with a sick toad. It died anyway. Instead, try taking care of a stray cat; my grandmother's old neighborhood had a cat that was sort of a half-stray (it belonged to someone across the street, but they never really let it in as I recall), and even though I only saw Pokie (short for "Pocahantas" - my playmate and I had both seen the epically historically inaccurate movie, so we named the cat Pocahantas only to realize it was a boy) a few times a year, it recognized me each time.
Fantasy: The popular girls all have names like The Unicorn Club or The Flamingo Club.
Reality: Remember those girls who really wanted to be cool and laughed like they weren't all there, wore bright purple eyeshadow on their cheeks and made fun of people by going "durrr" at them? Those were the girls who called themselves They were sometimes nasty, but never what I'd call part of the "cool" crowd, though they tended to have friends in the cool crowd. But they were very much on the fringe.
Fantasy: If you sing "I'm so excited, I'm so excited" and then cry into your friend's arms, you won't have addiction problems anymore. Also, dieting either means you're anorexic or diabetic.
Reality: Let's address addiction first. While I understand why a kid's show doesn't want to have a main character get hardcore addicted... addiction is a slippery slope, one that tends to see relapses and denial that lasts a LOT longer than a week. As for dieting, while some diets are ridiculous, there's a difference between dieting, having an ED, and having diabetes. By the descriptions I was given as a child, everyone I know who has to, or wants to, exercise and watch what they eat is either anorexic or diabetic. ALL of those things are far more complicated than that, and you can go into it without being completely morbid.
Fantasy: If you tell people they're mean and not cool, they'll stop being mean and making fun of you for not being cool.
Reality: Okay, I'll admit that worked for me once, but in that scenario I think the girls being mean were really just trying too hard to be cool themselves, rather than deliberately setting out to make me miserable. But the only reason I think that is because saying that actually worked; if they'd really wanted to make me miserable, they would've done what the other girls who made me miserable did and just been even nastier. Telling someone they're not being nice when they're not trying to be nice is like telling someone they're wearing pink nail polish. They noticed, and they like pink nail polish, and now that they know you don't and you've pissed them off and potentially embarrassed them in front of other people, they're going to wear hot pink nail polish every day just to spite you.
Fantasy: Starting a babysitting club will work.
Reality: Well, let's talk about my personal experience.
- There were two members, Claudia and Mallory. I was Mallory; my "BFF" was Claudia.
- Since we were only about eleven, nobody ever really wanted us to babysit for them proper. Instead, one person relented and let us entertain her children while she took care of her baby.
- The day we were supposed to show up, Claudia bailed out because her parents didn't realize she was supposed to babysit that day, and wanted her to do something else. That or she didn't feel like it anymore, I never really worked that one out. (She WAS wearing something that seemed pretty formal, so I think she might have been telling the truth.).
- We disbanded a week later and formed a Butterfly Club instead, also consisting only of two members.
Yeah. :P
Fantasy: You'll all go to the same college/university! Hey, it worked for Cory, Shawn, Angela (I think that was her name?) and Topanga...
Reality: Yeah, but Topanga turned down either Yale or Harvard (I forget which) to make that possible. That actually really sucks.
Plus, sometimes, and some of these books/shows actually do portray this, it's actually best when your friends don't follow you to college, because you end up drifting from them more than if you'd just separated to begin with, maybe because it's more noticeable than if this friend were simply far away. It's one thing to notice a slight change on weekends, another to notice it when you share a dorm room but don't even see each other there very often.
Fantasy: It's a good idea for kids to solve mysteries. The deadlier, the better.
Reality: Yeah. No. CALL THE POLICE.
Fantasy: There is no Mrs. Zarves.
Reality: This one is debatable.