So Does Showing My Toddler Shaun of the Dead Make Me a Bad Parent?

My three-year-old son loves him some zombies. I guess I'm the one to blame for it. I broke him in on the classic Universal stuff, Dracula, Frankenstein and the rest. A rambunctious and hearty little boy, he ate it up like candy. No shrinking violet is he.
So I figured the time was right for something with a little more bite to it (sorry...) The other night, when his mother and older sister stepped out to the store, my boy and I kicked back our feet and enjoyed some British undead parody goodness.
His reaction? Pure delight. He laughed, he cheered, he jumped up and down. I figured it was smart to go with a horror comedy, with a lot more light-hearted moments and slapstick. To tell you the truth, other than that nasty bite scene in Barbara's driveway and the stuff at the end, the gore is not all that bad (of course I skipped through all the really bad stuff. We can save the gut-munching until he's at least seven.) Actually, I was more concerned about the expletive-laced dialogue than anything else. But he really is too young for any of that to register with him anyway.
In the end, it was great bonding experience. I got a major kick out of him trying to pretend he wasn't scared, I could see the thrill in his eyes that I got watching stuff as a kid that seemed just a little too dangerous for me. At one point, when he thought I wasn't looking, I caught him doing his best little zombie impersonation. Other fathers can have their little league--now this was a moment to be proud of!
Needless to say, the idea was to keep the whole thing a secret from his mom, who I could imagine would not totally approve. But all pretense of secrecy went out the window that very night when the boy gleefully exclaimed to Mommy that he could hear zombies outside the house. As Ricky Ricardo might say, I had some 'splaining to do.
So now Shaun of the Dead is one of the boy's favorite flicks, right alongside Cars, Madagascar and Finding Nemo. A little weird? I guess so. But he is my son, after all.

Tweet

Pin It