The Buddies movies

If you don't know the Buddies movies, they are a series of movies about the five puppies of the dog in Air Bud.  Their names, which they were given at birth, reflect their entire personality. Rosebud is a girly-girl, Budderball likes to eat, Buddha is calm, B-dawg is cool and Mud-bud likes to get dirty.  (As in the Smurfs, there is only one girl and her identity does not go beyond being female).  I contrast this with a book I just read, "Mindset," which explains how harmful it is to label children, even with good labels.  For example, telling your child that she is smart after she does well on a test without having studied sends several messages: that in the future if she has to study for a test, that means she must not be as smart as if she did not need to study, that if she does poorly on a test you will no longer consider her to be smart, and therefore it is safest to do things that are easier so that her label of "smart" will not be removed.  It is better to praise the your child when they learn or work hard at something. 

I used to read the Babysitter Club books. Probably close to all of them.  As in the Buddies movies, and so many other books and movies pandered to children, the author had several characters in the same situation: namely, that they were girls the same age and wanted to be babysitters.  In order to differentiate them (and as a two-dimensional attempt to give them personality) she labeled them.  There was the flighty artist who doesn't do well in school, the tomboy who doesn't care about clothes, the frumpy shy girl, the fashionable girl, the vegetarian and environmentalist from California, etc. In many tv shows (Saved by the Bell comes to mind) the same thing happens that the members of a group of friends show characteristics that are extreme and static. 

In the Buddies movies it's even more extreme since the puppies all look alike, so every thing they say and do has to reflect their label.  It's a shortcut to developing someone's character, and it's lazy and artificial on the part of the writer.  My kids love the Buddies movies.  But I wonder if they are asking themselves which dog they are, and if that is all they can or will ever be.

Real life is not like that.  People are not like that.  I get that people are different from each other, and that there are people who are "jocks" or "shy" or "popular."  But not only is each individual person comprised of so many facets, people change, and can shed their labels.  Many parents of twins are wary of those who would want to label their children in order to tell them apart.  "Which one is the smart one?  The prettier one (if not identical)? The nicer one?" The parents don't feel the need that others do to label their kids because they know how complicated they are.  There isn't a smart one and a pretty one, they have names for a reason.  They are a whole person, not the opposite of their twin for convenience's sakes. Even siblings that aren't twins can get labeled similarly to differentiate them.

  I feel like my parents did a good job of not putting labels on us, but even so kids pick up small differences and make them larger than they need to be; it's a natural inclination when you are trying to define who you are to yourself.  I had a sister who was good at sports and had short hair.  That must make her the tomboy.  I had a sister who was involved in student government, that must make her the leader.  I had a sister who was very fashionable, that makes me feel like I'm not (but really, usually I'm not).  I defined myself as being the one that was good at math, but it's an artificial construct.  Others of my siblings are very smart, even if not as good at math.  I can be a leader when I want to and try to.  Others of my sisters can be fashionable and good at sports (even if not quite as much as the sisters I mentioned).  That's the real way people are, and it's messy.  People aren't superficial characters thrown together for an after-school special. 

I hope my kids don't ever, or at least rarely, define themselves.  It's too constraining, and it's not very accurate to describe who they are.  My best friend in high school told me that since I'm good at math, I must not be a creative person, and that still hurts a little after twenty years.  Sometimes I am creative, and sometimes I am good at sports and sometimes I am shy and silly and extroverted and interested in politics and history (but not very often).  I'm still a work in progress and so are my kids. But apparently the Buddies are not.