As You Wish
Parenting advice courtesy of “The Princess Bride”
Because I am both lazy and an opportunistic multi-tasker, I like to work on my parenting skills while doing something decidedly more fun like watching a movie. Movies are way better than hours of self-reflection. And who needs to spend time agonizing over how to impart good values to our children when Hollywood has already done it for us?
In perhaps the most perfect movie of the 1980s (which is saying something since it’s the decade that brought us Weird Science, Die Hard and The Goonies), The Princess Bride offers parents all the information we need to raise competent, well-adjusted, thieves, pirates and princesses. Here are ten of the best pearls of wisdom and how to adapt them into your parenting routine.
- “Who said life was fair? Where is that written? Life isn’t always fair.”
Granted, this bit of advice has been a parenting mainstay since the beginning of time (or at least since the beginning of whining), but it remains relevant today. Because it’s true. Life isn’t fair. And fairness is overrated anyway. Next time your kid bites you, take the opportunity to point that out.
- “You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.”
Never has a generation been more invested in the concept of immediacy than the kids we are raising now. Instant gratification has become the norm. But patience is a virtue (another pearl of wisdom gleaned from pop culture. Thank you, Trix Rabbit.), and kids need to know that there are things worth waiting for. Like love and success and a really good marinara sauce.
- “Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.”
When the day comes that you have to look into your child’s eyes and explain to them a painful loss, these words will come in handy. Whatever your religious or spiritual beliefs, the idea that love transcends all is universally comforting.
- “When I was your age, television was called books.”
To update this for today’s world, you can say, “When I was your age, texting was called actually talking to people.” Or something like that. This quote illustrates how every generation feels like the next is being ruined by technology and how they are both wrong— and right— about that.
- “Rodents of unusual size? I don’t think they exist.”
Westley says this a moment before he is mauled by, you guessed it, a rodent of unusual size. This illustrates why you should teach your children to expect the unexpected. It is also a handy thing to remember when you are in Mexico. Ever seen a capybara? I have, and it haunts my nightmares. . .
- “Cynics are simply thwarted romantics.”
I think this is true. Behind every cynical snipe or jab is a person who has been hurt and is afraid of being hurt again. Knowing this might help heal your romantic’s soft heart or help your cynic become more self aware. Either way, it bears repeating because everyone lands on one side of this equation or the other. Often times, both, depending on how well-fed, well-rested, and well-chocolated one is.
- “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Inigo Montoya says this to Vizzini when he keeps using the word “inconceivable” to describe things that are completely conceivable. Today, we can use this comment when our kids say “literally.” When a person under the age of 21 uses the word literally, it literally never means literally.
- “Get used to disappointment.”
This is another parenting mainstay but one that bears repeating. If there is one problem I see over and over again in children today, it’s that they have no capacity for disappointment. This is because we, as parents, we shield our kids from disappointment like it is an incoming Tomahawk missile. Medals for everyone? No keeping score? Let’s not pick a winner? Please. When we take away disappointment, we also take away the hunger for achievement. It’s ridiculous. It isn’t fun to watch our kids be disappointed, but it is absolutely essential to raising a human being who doesn’t feel entitled. And I promise you, there is no greater disappointment than getting out into the world and realizing you’re not the brightest star in the sky as you were led to believe your whole life.
- “There’s not a lot of money in the revenge business.”
This is my personal favorite. (Mostly because Inigo Montoya says it in his fetching Spanish-tinged-with-Jewish-New-York accent.) But if there is one thing I hope I’ve taught my kids, it’s that old adage about how holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other guy to diem which leads me to my last piece of advice.
- “Never go in against a Sicilian where death is on the line.”
I’m not exactly sure what parenting application this has, it just seems like good, solid advice.