On being a lemming
My nine-year-old daughter looked at me innocently, big brown eyes disguising the impending ambush. I never saw it coming….
‘How come I can’t see the _______ movie?’
So, how many replies are there in umpteen? I stopped what I was doing, put on my ‘let’s-be-reasonable-and-discuss-this’ face, and began with what I considered to be a sensible, rational and, above all, logical response. I started with the plain facts, ‘You are nine, the movie is rated for twelve and older. This is why they go to all the trouble of putting age-ratings on movies. Clearly, you are too young to see it.’
She maneuvered quickly, tossing back the tried and true response, ‘But all my friends have seen it and they’re nine like me.’ Nice try, but I had ready the age-old parental comeback. Here goes…wait a minute…I don’t want to sound like my parents when they used that same rhetorical ‘if your friends jump off a cliff, would you’ tactic. I’d hated it. So, being the up-to-date modern mum, I simply said, ‘Do you wanna be a lemming?’
Of course I was feeling pretty good about myself, having resisted the temptation of being prehistorically trite. I then switched to my ‘let-me-enlighten-you’ nurturing voice and patiently explained about these rodents known for periodic mindless mass migrations that sometimes end in drowning. Following that, I asked her again, ‘So, do you want to be a lemming?’ ‘No,’ she replied, ‘I just wanna see the movie.’
Maybe I need to think about this…I proclaim individuality. But to stand out too much in the crowd cries out eccentric, oddball, or worse pariah. I practice conformity probably more than I would admit.
And there is something to be said for living within a community. No man is an island and all that. I will, by my very human nature, have a commonality with those around me. But I suppose it all comes down to whether I do things because they are right for me or merely because I suffer from that keeping-up-with-those-dreadful-Jones affliction.
Well, my daughter has not seen the movie and probably won’t until she’s a little older. We have left the lemmings on the cliff-top for another day.