Even in our songs, if we need to make the red-nosed Reindeer into a Christmas 'celebrity' for it to feel secure about itself, how will our kids ever know the true basis for self-worth?
I was listening to Christmas music on FM. It was the song about Rudolf the red-nosed Reindeer. I have heard this song umpteen times, but this time what caught my attention was that Rudolf is rejected by other Reindeers. When the Santa finds Rudolf useful then the other Reindeers look ‘up’ to him. Having become an instant ‘celebrity’ the Reindeer transitions from rejection into the privilege of being ‘most loved’. At a superficial level as this story is ‘heart-warming’ story about a rejected person being accepted, but what bothers me is that at a deeper level the basis for acceptance is more about the newly found ‘celebrity’ status (and usefulness to another showier celebrity – the Santa) than intrinsic self-worth. If our kids get cue from this that their self-worth is in discovering something about themselves which will make them a celebrity or make them useful to other celebrities, catching some lime-light themselves, then that is really a bad moral. Celebrity-hood often is fickle. ‘Reindeer Celebrities’ who pin their hopes on their usefulness to others will burn out fast and are often predisposed to spiral into a depression. Wonder how much such good songs/movies/self-help books with bad morals have to do with depression which is a huge problem among kids, who ideally should be enjoying their blissful childhood reading about good morals in the likes of Chronicles of Narnia.
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