How the parents were “educated” by their own children, and changed their beliefs about reading comic books, translated…
When my children were younger, once my husband asked them if they can stop buying comic books, because we already have a lot at home, and believed that there was, a very low chance that they will ever flip through those comics again, that if they’d wanted to, they can go out to rent them. At the time I was still contemplating on which side to stand on, my fifth-grade son rebutted, he said, “Dad, you may not understand the meaning of comics to us, as we bought the different comics, we’re noting the differences in styles of drawing, and to draw out the stories’ plots strip by strip is no easy task, some of the comics, you’d needed multiple artists to finish. And, what the comics are conveying is different from the books, there is a lot of creativity, designs in them, you must not have read enough, that, would be why you’d not wanted us to spend any more money on it.”
My third-grade daughter chimed in, “what about when you and mom kept buying the books to read? How come you guys can buy them, but not us? And, if you’d prevented us from buying the comics, then, we will still find a way, to pay for them using our own allowances, it’s just that you won’t see it, so, wouldn’t it be the same? And, if the spaces are not enough, then, we’ll just have to, tidy up the bookshelves every once in a while, comics are a very important marking of our childhood years here!”
It’d shocked me, hearing how my kids were defending their own rights to keep buying and reading through their comic books, I’d never have guessed, that they’d felt so very strongly about having and reading comics. And so, my husband and I started changing our tactics, asked the kids to recommend their favorite comic books to us, then, at our spare times, we’d sit down, and discuss with them what we’d read, and shared with them what we enjoyed about the comics. And, ever since, our conversation had multiple discussions, like, “What kind of person do you think Rulf is?” “Which designs do you like the best in Jojo?”, “What do you think this segment of story is about?”………all of these had, brought us all closer, it’d allowed us to know what the kids are learning in reading the comics, and, it’d, increased our bond too.
The comics we’d discussed included, “the King of Pirates”, “Dr. Black Jack”, “Jojo’s Incredible Adventure”, “Buddha”, “XXX Holic”, “Konan, the Detective”, “The Three Kingdoms”, “The Tough Guy Marathon”, “The Sushi Shop of Juntaro”, etc., etc., etc., and, I’d found my own favorite comic artist—Wen Cheng, he had an assortment of styles, the careless manner he’d splashed the inks across the pages, his delicate style of storytelling, his care and concern toward humanitarian beliefs, I too, had turned into, a comic fanatic now!
And, this just shows the importance of how parents shouldn’t judge what their kids are doing as useful, productive, or unproductive based off of what they see on the surface, just like these two adults who got to understand why their children loved comics, they’d found a new way to connect to their own children, by reading the materials that their children are interested in, it’d brought the family together even more.
Life, the Obstacle Course 