More Lines on CORALINE: Boys' Emotions

Last night I took my kids to see The Wizard of Oz on the big screen at Ulster Performing Arts Center. It was an experience like they'd never had at a movie. They'd seen it many times on video and DVD, of course, like any nine or 11-year-old. But here was a giant auditorium of people and images many times their height; people clapped for every actor, sang and chanted along. A father with his daughter on his lap sat in front of us; in front of them, three men leaned their heads on one another's shoulders.

Before the picture, my son and his friend (another unschooler) discussed CORALINE.

BOY 1: So how was CORALINE?

BOY 2: Sad. And scary. But mostly sad.

BOY 1: I almost never cry but sometimes I do. If I'm hurt. Or at a movie if someone is hurt.

ME: If you're injured?

BOY 2: He means if his feelings are hurt.

BOY 1: Yeah, if my feelings are hurt.

It was a privilege to listen in, and I wondered how many conversations between boys go into that territory. Maybe it happens all the time and goes largely unreported, or maybe it had to do with the kind of people these particular boys are.

I asked later what was so sad about CORALINE.

"When she goes to bed and makes dolls of her parents," my son said. "And when she puts all the dolls in the chest and locks it [in the other world.] I didn't like that at all."