This weekend I went to Disneyland with a friend and her children, ages 13, 10, and 7. For the two older ones, they had been enough times to have experienced the big rides and to remember what they liked. Also, they were old enough to know about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and the other mythical creatures who completed our childhood. The 7-year old hasn't made it that far yet. This was the first trip to Disneyland since he was 2 and I was able to sign them in. Essentially, this was his first trip. Understandably, he was trepedatious about certain rides. I suggested starting him on Big Thunder Mountain instead of Space Mountain because at least he could see what was coming; his mother disagreed. Instead, she insisted on taking him on Indiana Jones, Tower of Terror, and all of the other big rides that are not as easy to introduce to smaller children. He did not ride California Screamin', but he did love Soarin' Over California, as we all did. I am not suggesting that I know more about her child than she does, but I have seen enough children over the years to know that forcing them to go on a ride they're not ready for even once can be enough to sour them for the rest of the day. Parents think their kids are ready for a ride because they see other children younger or smaller who can handle it just fine; or, they think they should be able to handle it because the video games they play are mature enough for this ride to not matter. I know the importance of baby steps when it comes to something that can genuinely freak a child out, and in a place like Disneyland, when the park is as slammed as it was, do you really want to add one extra level of stress to a day that is already going to be tough to make it through?
Sadly, this was not the part of the day that bothered me when it came to mom and her 7-year-old. It bothered me much more that she was telling him how everything worked before he had a chance to see it. She was telling him not to worry about the snowman on Matterhorn because it was just a pair of lights. She told him he wouldn't like the Haunted Mansion because he wouldn't like the movie "The Nightmare Before Christmas," even though he hadn't seen it and doesn't know what to compare the mansion overlay to. She told him about the people inside the character costumes, and how "Tinkerbell flies" from the Matterhorn and crashes into someone in back, and everything that could ruin the experience for him. While I can see how a child of that age is able to clue in to what is really going on around him, is it really necessary for his mother to be the one to spoil it all for him? Why is it she cannot support the magic that Disneyland has worked hard to create so that he can be as fulfilled by the experience as possible? There are tactics parents can use to make their children understand how things work without giving it away. For example, when we were leaving, the 7-year-old asked how the Wicked Queen in "Fantasmic!" changed into the Evil Witch. We told him it was magic, just like Harry Potter. He said Harry Potter wasn't magic, it was special effects. I laughed at that because to me, that's about as much as a 7-year-old should believe at that point. Unfortunately, I'm sure after I left that mom told him about the ol' switcheroo that takes place when the smoke is at its thickest.
Why was it necessary to be so blatant about how these things happen? Why was it necessary for mom to destroy any hopes of magic and not give her the son to be fully immersed in the experience? Is it because she has lost the ability to relate to the innocense and nostalgia of childhood? Is it because she herself has become jaded and feels that she is lying to her children by giving them an illusion to believe is truth? If she had daughters instead of sons (something she said she's grateful to not have), would she prevent them from coming to the parks in their princess dresses because she thinks it's stupid to believe in such a thing? Sadly, I think so.
It really wasn't fun in the overall experience to be in the park with her and her children, and that's a sad thing to say about someone I have been friends with for so long. The park had about 60,000 people, if not more, and she insisted on seeing every major ride and Fantasmic! in one day. She was genuinely annoyed by the people and the wait times. She was genuinely annoyed with me when I took the single rider option on Indiana Jones and waited 20 minutes, while they waited the full hour and a half. She didn't give me the opportunity to tell them that if I had seen them in line on my way up, I would have joined them instead of taking the single ride. All of these elements are what can cause someone with a Type-A personality to explode, as she did. I found the best parts of the day were when I took her older children onto Screamin', and when I met up with other friends to ride Toy Story Midway Mania, one of the most fun rides I had been on in years. She made the experience more about her than her children or even me. When it came time for dinner, she was annoyed that she had to schlep her children all over the park because they were such picky eaters that they couldn't all agree on one location, and it would have cost her $60 to feed them. Of course, if she had bought a full-size cheese pizza for $22, that would have been easier. (BTW, parents, if your children are picky eaters to the point where you have to prepare different meals for each of them and it's not because of allergies, that's your fault. You allowed it to happen. They eat what's being served or they don't eat. When they learn that the pickiness disappears.)
At the end of the day, I broke away from them because it was the only way I would not go off on her for being so damned high-stress. I didn't need people around me who would act like that all day. I didn't need people who would bitch about what they couldn't control rather than go with the flow and work with the things they could control. Disneyland is stressful enough. I love her - she's my oldest friend and we'll always be friends, but I am not likely to spend the day at Disneyland with her again any time soon.
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