I saw that you brought your daughter, who looked about eight, to “Cabaret” last night. Why?
Perhaps you have been living in a cave, and were unaware of the subject matter; and you are lazy, so you are careless about investigating what entertainment your child sees; and perhaps she is a big “Full House” fan, so you brought her to see Uncle Jesse’s turn as the Emcee. In this case, it would seem that the first few lines of dialogue, replete with puns about oral sex, would clue you in. If you are exceptionally dense, the mild nudity in Act I would really seem to be a hint as to content, but it seems that you had no such objections as you stayed for the whole play.
Perhaps you wish to teach your daughter about sexual diversity. If so, may I suggest that such topics can be adquately covered in frank conversation without your child witnessing grown-ups spanking one another or simulating sex on stage. Telling a child that two men or two women can love one another, date, or live as a married couple is really all she needs to know at this stage. Perhaps a book entitled “Heather has a Mommy, a Daddy, and a Daddy who was born a Mommy on the inside” would clear things up more than the song “Two Ladies.”
Now, I’m a big believer is addressing both sexual and moral concerns honestly as the issues come up. When your child is two, telling her that babies grow in their mommies’ bellies will probably be all the information she needs, wants, or can process at that stage. At three or four, she will ask how these babies get into those bellies, then you trot out the story of how mommies and daddies who love each other have a special kind of hug. This satisfies her for a few years, then she gets curious about the mechanics of this special hug, ect. Kids are curious and do find out tidbits of sexual innuendo that they need clarification on. I do find it odd that your daughter was so curious about bestiality that you thought it was appropriate for her to see “If You Could See Her,” and that her questions about prostitution would be cleared up by “Money.”
Maybe you want to teach her about the how hard times can leave people to make difficult and cowardly choices. Not happening right now. You see, your child is at a very literal stage of mind, the age where it is wrong to steal a loaf of bread even if you are starving because that would be stealing. She is not going to understand why people who love each other break up. It will just confuse her.
So, really, you wanted her to learn a little pre-WWI history. Not the right way to go about it. Of course we can not shelter our children from all the evil that is in the world. Any attempt to do so would just leave them either hopelessly shallow or hopelessly naive. But here’s the parent’s dirty little secret- we can’t actually protect them from all this evil. We have no guarantee that we can keep them from being abducting by a monster, blown up by a terrorist, or killed by a horrible disease. What we can do is give them the illusion that we can keep the bad at bay, that they will always be cared for. This is the most valuable illusion we can instill in them because this fantasy of safety will enable them to see the world as an exciting place of adventure, and by the time they are grown enough to realize that they are not safe, that there are dangers too terrible to contemplate…they will have the strength and confidence nurtured by this illusion of protection to face these dangers every day.
So, instead of immersing your child in these stylized musical vignettes of hatred, apathy, and distruction, perhaps introduce her to the Nazis with “The Sound of Music.” It has a happy ending that she will take comfort in. Then move on to “The Diary of Anne Frank.” It has an unhappy ending that nevertheless places more emphasis on intrinsic human value and goodness then on the scary stuff. It can be a lauching point for discussions of the horrible things that threaten to engulf our world in darkness every day, and what can be done to shine a light.
