Heroes

DD and SI

This week marked the anniversary of John Lennon's assassination.  I've long considered John Lennon a personal hero, but as I listened to my favorites of his songs I came to realize that he was not my only dead hero.  In fact, as I thought on the matter, I discovered that not only were the bulk of my heroes dead (on in many cases, fictional), but they had never in fact lived during my lifetime.  I had no overlap at all.

I thought more and more on this.  The sixties and seventies were FULL of heroes- people that the vast majority of American children could look up to, to aspire to be like.  John Lennon, Neil Armstrong, President Kennedy, Dr. King, Sandy Koufax, Roberto Clemente, Marylin Monroe...

I wracked my brain for hours, and although I came up with several people alive I might call heroes, or who sub-sections of my generation might revere, the only universal hero figure I could come up with for my lost generation was Michael Jordan.

Our sports figures were largely despicable, if not outright criminal.  Our pop and rock icons were constantly on drugs.  Our music began not only to glorify violence and crime, but in some genres to attempt nothing but simple shock.  Our politicians were more and more disgusting.  Our movie and television stars completely detached.  Of course we had no universal heroes, none of our celebrities was worth emulating.

SI is finally walking!  DD is unimpressed.

So, how on earth does this have anything to do with parenting, right?

I imagine explaining who John Lennon was to my children.  And then I imagine who might be their heroes when they're at the critical age when children crave adult figures that inspire.  I remember finding those people in textbooks, or in my parents' CD library, or in made up stories.  I remember how many children in my school had Michael Jordan all over them- their shoes and their backpacks and their trapper keepers...

Who will my children look up to?  And will there be anyone to look up to at all?

More and more, I fear the answer is 'no.'  I think that one of the most important problems is that our society has become so focused on the negative.  We don't hear stories about the inspiring things our celebrities do, we hear about Michael Vick's dog fighting, Ben Rothlisberger's sexual assaults, Brittany Spear's nth rehab visit, Tiger Woods and John Edwards' infidelities... and this is the trend my generation learned to expect.  We grew up in a society that constantly shreds our idea of a hero.  We grew up to be cynical, and cynics can't maintain a hero.  I remember a line I found hilarious on 30 Rock last season, when a airline pilot made a comment about Sully Sullenburger, who successfully landed his full jet on the Hudson losing an engine: "You know what I would have done?  NOT flown into the birds.  That's what I do every day, NOT hit birds.  Where's MY ticket to the Grammy's?"

But a dead person- or a fictional person- they can't be torn down.  They're whoever you want them to be, and it lasts forever.  And that's the most important element of a hero- they are in some way perfect, in some way exactly what you want to be.

We need heroes.  I'm not saying heroes are dead, but I am saying it's too late for my generation.  And if it's our job to provide heroes for our own kids, they might be out of luck.

I have no idea who my children will admire.  I fear they will be the same despicable celebrities of the present.  And I don't know where to look for heroes, having never really found any of my own.

Nothing is better than a book

I can pass along my own heroes, the dead and the unreal.  I can share my Mars comics and their super-smart female scientist lead, I can share my John Lennon music and their message of love and understanding, I can share my Tolkien novels, and the healthy morals within their pages.  But I know that as much as I loved those people during my own youth, they couldn't replace a true hero.  A real person I could look to.

I know that most people consider their parents their heroes, but that is a different sort of hero.  It's the constant role model and assistant, not the distant ideal.  And that distant ideal, I believe, is critical.  And the loss of those heroes is why I believe the only heroes most of us have ARE our parents.  Parents shouldn't be lone heroes.

Parents are fallible.  Parents make mistakes.  Parents make you do your homework and go to bed, and in hindsight that makes them wonderful, but at the time it makes you WISH SO HARD that... your hero was your dad, or your mom.  If Gandalf was my dad, he'd let me get another kitten.  If Mommy was Morgana, she'd let you make experimental beverage concoctions for lunch.  If Pippi was my sister, we'd NEVER fight.

Kids need heroes to write letters to, to collect autographs from, to hold onto as beacons of an alternate universe that was perfect once they're adults in a flawed world.

I have no hero to connect me to a perfect childhood.  And every hero I do have is somehow tragic, tainted by my own cynicism.    I don't want that for my girls, I want them to have heroes.

I just can't imagine what it's like.