Reply #162: Brilliant post! Thank you!

[woo me with science]

Especially this: "I totally agree wtih Sendak's larger point, that children have emotions and fantasies that are full of anger and fear and violence and all sorts of darkness. The "innocence" of childhood--at least as adults imagine it, as total 24-7 sparkly playland free of anything "negative" or scary or angry or wild or vaguely sexual--is a pernicious myth that harms children by denying their true inner reality."

The denial of this is the cause of many sick and hysterical aspects of our society now. People are taught that "normal" minds do not think these things or experience these emotions, and so they become alarmed when they experience them or see them in children.

We teach bewildered children and hapless adults to be alarmed by their normal dark fantasies and to see them as evidence of deep personal sickness, pathological parenting, or even repressed abuse. Call in the professionals! No wonder there are so many depressed children, emo teens, and adults addicted to therapy.

The human psyche is a wild, imaginative, and messy place. Sendak is right that people need to get a grip.