Yeah, so I've got this kid, and he likes to be read to. I've never been much of a book kind of guy, but I can tell the little guy likes the attention, so I try to humor him every now and then. I kind of stuck to the basics at first, a little Dr. Suess, mostly ‘cause I like it too. But now I'm trying to branch out into some stuff I'm not familiar with. I figured in the process, since I'm supposed to be sending stuff into the footnote, I'd share my thoughts with you guys about what was good and what wasn't. There's your backstory.
 It was just some random night that I picked a new book off the kid's shelf. Can't say I'd really ever seen it before and I don't know who bought it for him. I don't think it was the wife, because it doesn't seem like something she'd go for either. So I plunked the kid down and opened up his copy of "Love your Forever" (by Sheila McGraw and Robert Munsch if you care).
Do not read this book to kids. It's really, really fucking creepy. Even if they think it's fine now, they'll probably realize it later and have to spend thousands on therapy 'cause this book messed them up somehow.
On the surface, it's not so bad. Basically, it's about this mom who has a kid - just a little baby in the beginning. As she's trying to get him to go to sleep she says to him something like this:
"I’ll love you forever, I'll like you for always, for ever and ever my baby you'll be."
Okay, that's kind of mushy, but I guess that's how moms are supposed to be with their kids. I'm a dad. Things are different with us. The best you'll get out of us on average is something like this:
"Hey little guy, you're not so bad. I like you a lot. Stay away from my porn."
Now, that difference aside it's not what the mom says so much that's creepy. It's that she doesn't know when to stop. A page or so later, the mom says it again when the kid's a toddler, walking around making a huge mess. She picks him up when he's sleeping and says the bit. Okay, still pretty normal, but wait a page or two.
She's still doing that shit when the kid's a teenager. Waiting until he's asleep, going into his room, cradling him and then saying the bit. That's getting a little too weird at this point. Let go for Pete's sake! He's a friggin' teenager - you're lucky he doesn't pitch a tent pole in his sleep when you hold him. It gets so much worse though - flip a few more pages.
The kid's now middle-aged. Married. Seems to have a nice life, a decent house, has his shit together despite the fact that he's got to be some kind of near-miss Norman Bates. So we see the now pretty old mom driving to his house - with a ladder. What? Why does she need a ladder? Well, she needs a ladder to climb into her son and daughter-in-law's bedroom on the second story of their house, you see. Because mom's now going to climb in through the window, get into bed with the sleeping couple, hold her son in her arms, and say her little "love you forever" bit. How the sleeping couple doesn't wake up as a result of this, I don't know. I'm trying to think how the resulting conversation would go.
Mother: "…forever and ever my…"
Daughter-In-Law: (waking up suddenly) Wha- who's there!?!? Oh shit, mom, you scared the shit out of me. Bill. Bill! Wake up!
Son: <jerks awake> Huh? What?
D-I-L: It's her. Your mom's here again. I thought you talked to her about doing this shit, Bill.
Mother: I just want to say goodnight to my little boy, is that so bad?
D-I-L: He's not a little boy anymore! He's THIRTY-FOUR years old! You've got to stop doing this, it's not right! Tell her, Bill!
Son: I, uh… listen mom…
Mother: Listen, you little whore, he's my boy and you'll never love him as much as I do. He's lucky that at least one woman in his life cares about him.
D-I-L: How'd you get in here, anyhow? We took your key away after the last time you pulled this shit. Is that a ladder? You climbed up a ladder and broke into our house? Bill, she's breaking into our house now!
Son: Well, she, uh… just loves me. That's all, I guess.
D-I-L: Well obviously I don't love you enough then. Why don't you just pack your things and go stay with her? Tomorrow I'm going to my sister's until you deal with this shit. I'm done!
You see what I mean? Creepy as hell. Now we have to deal with the end of it.
The mom's now really, really old. Seems she can't get out of bed anymore, even. So the son comes over to see her and she doesn't have the strength to pick him up and do her thing. So he holds HER in his arms and says the bit, except he cleverly changes the end to say "my mommy you'll be" or whatever it is. I'm not going to read it again to check these quotes because the book really weirds me out that much. I guess it's cool that he does that in the end - returns all that love she showed him, but that STILL doesn't change how damn scary the rest of the book is. I will never, ever, read this book to my kid again. I might even see if I can get rid of the damn thing because I don't want it in my house. |
