Is it a gamble to let a 10-year-old watch ‘21′?
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A few months after coming home from a slumber party where they showed “The Shining,” my nearly 11-year-old slept at a friend’s house last week and watched “21.” I wouldn’t have vetted either movie, but it was the latter — the “based-on-a-true” story of MIT students who mastered the art of card counting and made millions in Vegas — that bothered me more. I guess I’m more worried that my son will be drawn to gambling some day than that his father will be possessed by sinister forces and attack him with a mallet.
“21″ is the story of a math genius (”the most gifted student at MIT”) who gets lured into a diabolical and greedy professor’s scheme of teaching a group of whiz kids to count cards. The boy wonder sees this as his ticket to Harvard Medical School, where he’s been accepted but can’t afford to go. “$300,000 and then I’m out,” he tells himself and his fellow card sharks.
My son loved the movie, partly because he loves math and our hero is very good at math. But what troubles me is that before the movie turns into very much of a cautionary tale (a brutal beating is involved), it shows the adrenalin rush of gambling (and beating the odds and winning) and a shiny, glamorous Vegas. “In Vegas,” our hero says, “you can become anything you want.”
I would like to think my son came away with a healthy skepticism about gambling and not a desire to go up against the house as soon he’s old enough to try. I would hope this doesn’t become a major theme in my life, as it has for Lucy Ferriss, who writes wrenchingly in the New York Times Magazine about her son’s poker playing, which she finds hard not to see as an unhealthy addiction that will lead to a life of misery.
Trying to figure out how her son ended up dropping out of college to play poker excessively and professionally, Ferriss heads right to that go-to place of anxious mothers everywhere: what did I do wrong? Did helping him learn math by teaching him blackjack have something to do with it?
Some parents worried about the $5 buy-in games of Texas Hold ’Em that were held in various basements, including mine. I countered that I was glad the boys were talking to one another rather than staring at a video screen; that those who lost would play Ping-Pong or foosball. I actually taught Dan his first casino game, blackjack. When he was learning arithmetic, we had a jar of pennies on the kitchen counter, and one day I asked Dan and his brother if they’d like to learn a game in which they counted to 21 — and if they won, they got to keep the other players’ pennies. In short order, Dan owned the whole jar.
Obviously, addictive behavior results from many things. Ferris makes it clear that her son always had intense focus and that even his very successful youthful tennis playing had the marks of an addiction. But her article, in addition to being a compelling picture of just how much we cannot control about our grown-up children’s lives and how much of our fear is about fear more than anything else, illustrates how quick we are to blame ourselves when our children don’t turn out as we’d hoped.
Do we really think their character can be determined by watching a particular movie at age 11 or playing to win a jar of pennies in a childhood game of 21?
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Karen,
What’s one more movie a little ahead of his time? Watch Leaving Las Vegas with your son starring Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue. If that doesn’t take the glamour out of Las Vegas, what will? I’ve read a lot of your posts and I don’t always feel the need to comment as I am rarely brief. Kids learn by example. It’s that simple. I don’t think any of us kids turned out exactly the way my parents had hoped. They did the best they could and for most of us it was an idyllic time.
Lucy Ferris has written a beautiful piece that not only shows her sons flaws, but her own as well. What is an obsession of your son’s addiction? In her case it sounds like self-centered fear. First, he is only an addict if he says he is and secondly, she has been way too hard on herself.
You shouldn’t be trying to control your grown-up children anyhow. That’s just my opinion. You ask a question at the end, which I think you know the answer to:
“Do we really think their character can be determined by watching a particular movie at age 11 or playing to win a jar of pennies in a childhood game of 21?”
I believe you will find in time the answer is no. Some parents believe it is their job to worry for the rest of their lives and I think it is to move forward with your own life just as your children have and will continue to do so. If you taught them by example, they have the necessary tools to live life as an adult. But, life does happen to all of us. Whether it is addiction, health issues, etc. That’s where teaching them by example comes in. You won’t really see who they are and what they have learned until they are handed one of life’s problems. Nobody is immune. You’ll be surprised at how much they did learn when that time does come. Just a thought.
Sandy
Dear Sandy
In response to another comment. See in context »Who cares if you are not brief; you should comment often as you are very wise. Most of the time I know you are right but it’s helpful to have the reminder that obsessive worry in itself can be very self-centered.
I will keep Leaving Las Vegas in my back pocket, so to speak; no need yet to introduce him to perhaps the most depressing movie ever made!
Karen,
You started my day with a good laugh and thanks for your comments. I think your idea of keeping Leaving Las Vegas in your back pocket is wise as it is definitely one of the most depressing movies ever made. It was my first thought to counterattack 21. It also reminded me why I avoid Las Vegas. I don’t know why, but all of my male friends always want to go to Vegas. All I can think of is unnecessary drama, which I avoid at all costs.
My point is that for you to even question whether that one decision can be life altering pretty much shows you are on the right track, but I don’t think a single event is going to shape your son and who he winds up being. You obviously care for and love him a great deal. Maybe ease up on yourself just a little and enjoy this time of innocence. You’ll always have your arsenal in your “back pocket.”
Sandy
In response to another comment. See in context »