The movie Little Women actually has a lot of really cool nuggets that relate
to parenting. Vicki and I are going to share some of our reactions to that
movie. -In this first clip, it's early in the movie and Meg has gone to a dance
and she's twisted her ankle. And Laurie is kind of introduced to the family at
this time. He comes into the home and he meets Marmee or the mom for the first
time. -There's a lot of chaos going on and that's part of what we noticed in this
first clip. Let's take a look. -Taking in the middle of the night. And don't mind
the clutter, Mr. Lawrence. We don't. -Can I call you Teddy? -Yes. -You must
be part of their theatricals. -I'm Amy. -As you can see, when they come into this
scene, things are just going crazy. It's pretty late in the night and mom has
running around, all the sisters are running around. The house help is running
around. -I was just thinking too. Can you relate to this as a parent? "Don't mind
the chaos, we don't." Because it's just kind of crazy. And what I love about this,
Vicki. Marmee is not trying to cover it up. She's not trying to pretend that
everything is just the way that it should be. -And she's not irritated that her plan or her
routine got messed up at all. -She's so good-natured about everything.
In fact, you see that in the next part of this clip. -Thank you. -Lauren,
how are your ankles? You need ice? -No, thank you, Ma'am. -Just call me mother
or Marmee. Everyone does. -One of the things I love about that if she's not
apologetic for doing things her own way. She loves to bake in the mill the night.
She's got four daughters and she's busy and she bakes in the middle of the night
because that's what brings her peace and brings her happiness. She's not trying to
fit any mold. And I think that's one of the most important parts of this scene
is that so often, we get in our minds that we're supposed to be a mom in a
particular way whether it's the way a friend does it a way your mom did it or
the way your husband thinks you should do it. Or the way your husband's mom did
it or whatever. And she just being the mom of her home the way
that she is. -The other thing I really like about this particular portrayal: her
joyfulness. -Mm-hmm. -She honestly looks like she's having a great time in the
middle of all this chaos. -And she invites Laurie to come on in and enjoy it with
her. -For this next clip, there's a part in the movie where the girls are sitting
around and kind of complaining really about Christmas not being the way that
it normally would be. They don't have the resources to get gifts and to celebrate
the season. -And their dad is gone. -Dad is gone off with the war effort. And mom is
just setting everyone down to breakfast. Christmas breakfast. Let's take a look.
-What? -What is it? -Not far from here lives a poor young woman, Mrs. Hummel. Her
5 children are in one bed to keep from freezing and there's nothing to eat.
My girls, will you give them your breakfast as a Christmas present?
-So, mom brings up. Gives them the opportunity to now do some service which
is a really great parenting tactic, is to teach our kids how to have service and
compassion for others. And the best way to do that is first by modeling it. -I'm
thinking about the context around this, too. So, remember the girls were already
kind of having a hard time. If we don't get to have the kind of Christmas that
we were planning to have, put yourself in this moms position for a minute. She's
coming to her girls knowing that they're probably going to have a little
bit of problem with this. How often does that come up for us as parents? -That we
know we're gonna disappoint... That they're our children are gonna be disappointed.
-Yeah. Or a difficult conversation that we need to have with them. But she brings it
right up. I love her directness about that. And she asks them very directly.
"Will you do this?" Let's see how this plays out.
-Is this where you say that father would want us do? -Yes.
[Laughs] -I know. The thing I like
about that, we have talked so often about having your parenting team.
And the parenting team can look so different. Sometimes it's a husband
sometimes it's a parent that is helping your parent your children. Sometimes it's
a good friend. But there's this United Front in the parenting team and right
here, she has modeled that enough for the
children that they guess it before she brings it up.
-Is this where you say that this is what father would want us to do? That united
front. Really important. But I can see also that the girls are really
processing this right now. I think Marmee knew that she would be able to sell this
idea to the girls because she knows her daughters. She knew that it wouldn't be
easy for them. She's willing to have the difficult conversation. There's just so
many things about this that I really like. This third clip starts where amy
has been at school and she's drawn a picture of the teacher. And she got
punished. -In trouble. -And corporal punishment. Something that we
don't see now. But her hand is injured. And they're over at the neighbor's home
kind of processing all of this right now. -Okay, let's take a look at what happens.
-If Jo will teach you... -Me? I already teach Ben. -You're a good teacher. -Yes. Women
being taught at home is much more proper, I believe. -Only because this...
-Indeed. Quite right. -I wish all the girls would leave his
horrible school and that he would die. -Amy, you did wrong and there will be
consequences. -I didn't. I didn't anything. -I just did a drawing. -Thank you so
much for taking care of Amy. -Of course. -Okay. Right at the end of the clip.
Thank you so much for taking care of Amy. She's concerned about her daughter's injuries.
But the part that caught our attention, go ahead and point that out. -She said, "Amy,
you did wrong and there will be consequences."
And I think the important thing about this especially as a parent,
sometimes you just feel so pressured to give your consequences in the moment. And
I love that Marmee is taking care of things that need to be taken care of.
Taking care of all the people involved, thanking the people involved.
Getting Amy comfortable and tending to her wound. But she is still going to
teach the principal. And it's important but not urgent. -Right. -So, it's okay
sometimes to put off those consequences. And she let Amy know. "Hey, there will be
consequences for this." But we'll handle that when it's the right time. You know,
this really empowers parents too. I love the way that that gives you some
breathing room as a parent. You get to think through what are the most
appropriate consequences. All the kids need to know is that there will be some.
-Right. So, remember: Important not urgent. -This next sequence is a really powerful
sequence having to do with how we hurt each other sometimes. And in this
particular incident, Amy gets left out of something that she really wanted to be
involved with. Jo goes off and does her thing. When she comes back, Amy has
destroyed her book that she's been writing by hand, by the way. This is
before word processors. She burned it. She destroyed it. And admitted to it once she
was confronted saying, "Yeah, I'd really did want to hurt you. But I'm sorry for
it now." And Jo is just devastated by it. This is right after Amy confessed and
Jo's reaction and how Marmee handles it. -Don't let the Sun go down on your anger.
Forgive her. Help each other. And you begin again tomorrow.
-Wow. -Yeah, that's a really hard situation. -Don't let the Sun go down on your anger.
Now, this is a setup actually for another clip that we're going to share in just a
moment. What wise counsel to not allow this to fester and boil inside of you.
She knew that if Jo continued to feel this anger toward her sister, it was
going to hurt both of them. -And I like the way she kind of set that up is
she's helping her see that the anger is going to cause problems for Jo and the
relationship. She's not really talking about deserving or any of that. She's
really talking about trying to help her see that the relationship, preserving the
relationship and your own emotional feeling by getting rid of the
frustration. The anger is more important than anything else. -Right. -So,
this scene in Little Women is one of the most commonly watched scenes. You know,
it's really popular. Because what has happened as Amy is in bed now. She had
fallen through the ice. They've got her in bed. She's safe now but Jo is feeling
so much guilt and remorse because she had ignored Amy and did not give her the
warning about the thin ice. And kind of just wanted her to be aside and was
angry at her. -Mm-hmm. -And this anger had been building up. Now,
we we introduced in the last clip a little segment where Marmee said, "Don't
let the Sun go down on your anger." And now, Marmee and Jo are about to have a
conversation about anger. Listen in. This is great. -My fault. She'll be fine.
The doctors didn't even think she came home. -Now,
Marmee is reassuring Jo at this point because she's feeling the guilt now
about feeling the anger. She had something to do with the accident in the
first place. She wants to make sure that she's reassured there and I think that
that's an important thing for us as parents. -Yeah.
-Take some time to comfort. Let's see how this plays out. -What is wrong with me? I
made so many resolutions and written sad notes I'm crying over my sins. But this
doesn't seem to help. -"What's wrong with me?" -Well, I like that Marmee doesn't
just jump in and tell her that her feelings are wrong. -Right. -I
think it's so tempting sometimes for us to just jump in and tell our kids, "Oh, no,
no, no. You're just fine." She's helping her process her own
feelings and going through it with her. -And what a common feeling for our
kids to have? "What's wrong with me? Why can't I do this right?"
Jo's expressing that but Marmee is at this point simply being supportive. And
then she says something kind of surprising. -I get so
Savage. I could hurt anyone and I'd enjoyed it. -You remind me of myself. -Right
there. What did she say? "You remind me of myself." -Now, did you notice how
surprised Jo was? -Jo looks at her like "What!? Not you." -You have to understand. I love
the portrayal of Marmee in this movie because she is so pleasant. -Yeah. -And
we've already commented about that a few of the other clips. But Jo is affirming
to us here that "Yeah, my mom has it all together here", right? But listen to
what Marmee says. -You're never angry. -You're never angry. -I'm angry nearly
every day of my life. -You are? -I'm not patient by nature. That would nearly
40 years of effort. I'm learning to not let it get the better of me. -Wow. -I
just love that. Yeah. She takes a minute to really help her daughter see that
she's real. She's a person. She has her own faults and that she's continuing to
grow and try. And I said so often on this channel that it's so important
to let our children see that we are still developing as people, also. -And this
is a beautiful example of that. I love Jo's reaction where she says, "You!?
You're never angry." And and Marmee explains it. "Look, I'm not this way by
nature. I've worked on this. This is the product. -She doesn't even say "I never get
angry anymore." She says, "I'm angry nearly every day." But I learned patience. -"I don't
let it get the better of me", she says. -Yeah. -Wow. What if we could do that, right?
-This is the thing that I love about this particular movie and what it teaches us
about being a parent. I think Marmee's example to us to be
real, to be pleasant. -Be yourselves. -Be yourself. And work on the stuff that doesn't
come naturally to us so that it doesn't get the better of us. As parents, it gets
challenging. But like Marmee in the movie, we can develop skills and you may want
to get a little bit of help and input on that. That's why we have some coaching
programs designed. We would love to learn more about your situation and how you're
handling the challenges of parenting. Get on a free call with one of our coaches.
DrPaulJenkins.com/breakthroughcall.
We'd love to have that
conversation with you.