I’m not a parent – nor would I like to be one – but believe me, I’ve got very strong opinions about parenting.
You see, I don’t really like children. I find them weak and annoying, and though I once believed they were just inherently like that, I’ve since changed my mind. Now I believe that shitty, useless kids are the result of shitty, useless parents. I still find children annoying, but I no longer blame them for being like that.
Children are often riddled with irrational fears. I was scared of the dark. My sister… was scared of garbage cans. These things make little sense, and yet parents dance around them, trying to make their kids feel better through avoidance. I disagree with this practice.
The best way to overcome a fear is by facing it head on.
Instead of shining a light under a child’s bed to show them that there’s really no monster at all, parents should be dressing up LIKE the monster and storming into their child’s bedroom in the middle of the night, possible screaming. American photographer Arthur Tress had the right idea when he came up with this collection of photos called “Dream Collector“.
Arthur Tress – Turning Children’s Nightmares Into Reality
During the 1960s and 1970s, Arthur Tress interviewed children and asked them to describe their nightmares.
Dreams or nightmares were collected by conversations with children in schools, streets, or neighborhood playgrounds. The children would be asked means of acting out their visions or to suggest ways of making them into visual actualities… These inventions often reflect the child’s inner life, his hopes and fears, as well as his symbolic transmutation of the external environment, his home or school, into manageable forms.
Little did they know that their answers would be used to create the Dream Collector collection that I’m sitting here enjoying decades later.
Some of these nightmares were great! I especially liked the gnome monster.
I mean, these must have been absolutely terrifying for the children, but they need to toughen up anyway. Like I said, conquering fears head on… parents, you know what you have to do next time your child has a nightmare: exploit it mercilessly. To help them become better people, of course.
