Director’s Commentary

Here’s a dilemma I've pondered quite a bit over the years: should parents just let good books and stories work their magic on kids, without commentary from Mom and Dad? Or should they pepper stories with pearls of parental wisdom? 

Let’s put it in terms many Christian parents will understand: should you point out to your kids that Aslan is really Christ?

There are two schools of thought (and why is it always two? One of Life’s Great Mysteries): first, there’s the Don’t Spoil It By Talking About It school. These folks think that the story can do its work quite well, thank you, without parental involvement. Indeed, if parents point out things about the story that the kids wouldn’t have picked up on themselves, they (the parents) are thereby shredding the story’s effectiveness as a story, turning it into just so many disconnected proverbs. 

Doing so, they believe, is really despising the story itself - using the story, if you will, as a mere pulpit from which to preach to kids. Is preaching bad, then, some will reply? No, say the Don’t Spoil It crowd, but there’s a time and place for everything. And if you turn a story into nothing more than a setting for your moralisms, you have (1) guaranteed that the power of the story to affect the minds and hearts of your children is almost completely destroyed, and (2) turned the story into little more than propaganda. 

For some reason, I’ve heard these folks at their most vocal when it comes to the aforementioned Aslan, and The Chronicles of Narnia. There is a cottage industry of books written to explain the Christian meaning of the Narnian tales (I myself have written one of them). The Don’t Spoil It folks think it almost abhorrent that a parent would actually tell their kids who Aslan is (though it’s worth remembering that Lewis himself said that kids almost always figure it out quickly; adults, almost never).

Then there is what we might call the Never Miss a Teachable Moment school. Such parents think that a story (be it movie, book, poem, audio drama, or whatever) must always teach virtue and morality to kids; some would say that’s their only real value. And if we fail to draw out these lessons from every tale, we have, by our silence, turned the story into mere entertainment. On this view, it is the duty of parents to serve as Interpreters of the Story.

Both school have their strong points: the Don’t Spoil it parent is certainly right that there is a peculiar power that stories have to shape our loves and loyalties, quite apart (or at least distinct) from the explicit moral lessons that may be there. And I do think it is possible to overdo the teaching: if you find yourself stopping every couple of paragraphs to say, “now, kids, what this means is…”), then you are probably destroying the enchantment of the story, the ability of children to enter into the Story-world. Imagine Cecil B. DeMille popping out from behind the curtain every ten minutes of The Ten Commandments (instead of just at the beginning) to explain what just happened. Or imagine watching every movie with the Director’s Commentary running. 

But it’s also true (as the Teachable Moment folks correctly point out) that parents have a real responsibility to teach their children, and there are many lessons in stories that can help children learn how they ought to act or react in various situations. The wise parent will insist that children not miss these lessons (more on this anon).

But both Schools can also go to seed, of course. Don’t Spoil It parents can end up being the type that never discuss anything with their kids (“can’t we just enjoy the movie without turning Family Night into Philosophy Class?”). These are the families who utter that unspeakable heresy, “it’s just a story.” Oh, no it’s not. It may be many things. But it’s never “just” a story. 

On the other hand, the Teachable Moment Dad can easily turn into QWERTY from Veggie Tales, spitting out context-less Bible verses while Mom sings, “And so what we have learned applies to our lives today…” Bleh. Or like Chris, that perky host of Adventures in Odyssey, who always comes along at the end of a story to share a relevant Bible passage and encourage kids to learn the appropriate lesson from the episode. I love Odyssey, but I can’t help feeling that the show would be better off without the Max Lucado-type Life Lessons at the end.

What to do, then? Perhaps I’m tipping my hand, but I’m going to attempt to settle this dispute by…quoting a Bible passage. Remember when David sinned with Bathsheba and then had her husband killed? Nathan the prophet later comes to David, with the explicit purpose of what we may describe as Teaching David a Lesson. He comes, in fact, to drive David to repentance over a very specific moral problem. And how does he do it? He tells him a story:

There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds: But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him. (II Sam. 12:1 – 4)


Now, first of all: does the story, as a story, have the desired effect, without Nathan having to say, “In today’s story, we learned…”)? I think we can say, “yes.” As proof, consider David’s reaction:


And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the LORD liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die: And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity. (v. 5 – 6)


Here we see clearly the power of Story to move and change us. And yet…it is just at this point that Nathan steps in with the Director’s Commentary:


And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. (v. 7)


Then he goes on for the next six verses (so much for QWERTY’S aversion to anything longer than a verse or so) describing exactly how David was the rich man who stole the poor man’s lamb.

Should he have left David to figure it out? Or was there something much more powerful in his, “Thou art the man”? Here, both elements have their place: the power of Story, and the duty of fatherly instruction and interpretation. As parents, we must not miss this critical point: there will be times when, having read the story of traitorous Edmund, or arrogant Eustace, or bratty Rosamond (from George MacDonald’s The Wise Woman), we must turn to our child and say, in effect, “Thou art the kid.”

I think it’s all in how we provide such commentary, not whether it’s okay to do it or not: I agree with the Teachable Moment parents that we have a duty to serve as Interpreters of Stories and Teachers of Moral Philosophy. It is also true that silence on our part is really little better than abdication to the story’s author, whose ideas and worldview will therefore rule the day by default, whether they ought to or not (for the author is certainly doing his share of teaching).

To the extent that the Don’t Spoil It parents subscribe to the idea that “kids should be left to form their own ideas,” Christians should of course reject them utterly. Parents are required by God to teach and instruct (and truly they do teach, whether they intend to or not); they are, in this sense, the “directors” of their children’s theological and moral education. Combine that with the fact that kids are going to ask questions, anyway, and we are left with the inevitability of the Director’s Commentary. But perhaps we should remember that, while watching our DVDs and Blu-Rays, we normally turn on The Director’s Commentary the second time through.