Ready? I really didn't like The Notebook. I know--it goes against all known laws of chickdom, apparently. Child #3 loved it, and she convinced me to sit down with some popcorn (kettle for me, butter for her) and watch every girl's favorite flick.
"He climbs the ferris wheel, mom, and tells her she has to go out with him or he'll fall! Isn't that romantic?"
Being a mom, my reaction was slightly different. "No, it is not romantic; it's kind of stalkerish, and if anyone ever behaves that way around you, I'll probably call the police." Way to quench the budding romantic in my child, right?
Now, I have read plenty of romance novels in the past. I love princess movies. I would cry at a good Walmart commercial. So I am not unromantic. But I don't get it. And here's the crucial problem for me--I really don't want a man who would turn into a sad drunk hermit just because he lost the girl. That's not romantic. I want a guy with more self-worth than that. I want to be a women with more self-worth than that.
I have to wonder, if a man isn't strong enough to live without me, even if he desperately doesn't want to, will he be strong enough to live with me through the struggles of life and marriage and family? Just a question for my daughters. Any daughters. A question I hope they ponder carefully when romance seems like the ultimate goal and thoughts of life thereafter hang out in that hazy place called, "Oh, nothing like that will ever happen to us."
So where's the balance? Watching and reading things to escape is fun. Sometimes necessary. But I guess I don't want my three daughters getting their notion of what it means to be female and find romance from most of them. Sweet nothings are great, but as someone else put real love better--
"Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions." 1 John 3.18
