Papa, PhD: Essays on Fatherhood by Men in the Academy

Disney Dad

In a recent blog post on “Mama PhD,” Libby Gruner tells us of her little daughter rewriting the story of Beauty and the Beast; in the revised version, Belle refuses to marry her ugly beau, making her intentions clear by saying, “You’re not my boss. I’m going to put you in the zoo.” Hurrah. Let’s suppose you’ve labored long in the salt mines of academia, carrying out in your arms small signs of criticism in the classroom, treasures exchanged for torn fingernails and what sometimes seems to be quickly liquefying flesh. In that situation, statements like those made by the Gruner child can bring great cheer. You can tell yourself that your labors will be less in vain in the future. The consumers of mass culture have stepped out of the medieval darkness of mindlessness. (“Kids are just smarter and more political these days.”) You can even delude yourself that your pedagogy has unexpectedly found fertile ground. There’s such pleasure in proclaiming victory. No more slavery in the mines! The beloved utopia is here! The only salt on your hands from now on will be from the drying water as you make a pleasant trudge back to your towel on the beach! But I have no right to such fine expectations. And not only because I struggle with sentimental notions and would rather have my daughter show greater compassion to the Beast, particularly to his painful shyness about his ugliness. The plain truth is that my six-year-old daughter, Ila, has shown no critical distance to Disney narratives. Her world is populated with princesses. One of her most valued possessions is a photograph taken at a restaurant in Disney World: A young blonde in a yellow gown, a tiara poised on her coi¤ed head, has put her white-gloved hands around Ila’s shoulder. For my child, meeting Belle, if you’ll pardon my use of the cliché endlessly touted by Disney, is a dream come true. Disney Dad am it ava k um ar 3 01 Part 1_Manu 7/1/2010 5:29 PM Page 3 I complain about this situation all the time. I am embarrassed about my child’s embrace of reactionary cultural practices, and I sometimes ask myself why I accommodate at home what in the classroom I would clearly oppose. All of this can be put in the form of a question: Am I a better teacher than I am a parent? Nearly two years ago, Ila and I went to Disney World. My wife, who is an economist, refused to come with us. She said something like “It is a corrupt consumerist trap; you cannot possibly take Ila there.” But I did and enjoyed the trip very much. I had taken two or three books to read; I never got the chance to open any of them. From morning to night, nervous about a thousand things, I took my child in a rented stroller from one overpriced ride to another. There was tea with Sleeping Beauty. There were endless encounters with people in cute, but no doubt hellishly hot, stu¤ed-animal costumes. We met patient princesses who held their smiles while parents of the kids standing next to them figured out how to use a simple digital camera. In the evenings, the fireworks were spectacular. And in the mornings, a parade would emerge from nowhere, and the songs that were being sung by the marching bands were recognized and taken up immediately by the visiting throngs. I couldn’t join in; to me all of it was new. But I keenly felt the happiness of the people around me. It seemed that they were being returned to their childhood. And they had paid too much to complain too much. Ila was cheerful throughout, and if her face ever lost its smile it was only when we went into a souvenir store and she couldn’t decide what she should buy. I had told her beforehand that I wouldn’t get her an expensive gift. But what is an expensive gift? I saw her looking at the princess costumes for a long time, and then I noticed that she seemed to be swallowing something. Her gaze turned to other objects. She walked to the cart with trinkets. Heaps of little bracelets with Mickey or Cinderella or Winnie the Pooh on them. Ila looked up at me tentatively. Were they a¤ordable? What was one to do in...