Horror Movies

Do other parents find that movies that they would have enjoyed before kids are now just too damn painful to watch?

My daughter just asked to watch "ishy" again. "Ishy" is what she calls Finding Nemo (ishy = fishy, for those not fluent in toddlerspeak). Does she not know that Finding Nemo is a heart-stopping horror movie for parents? At least for this parent. Imagine, your beloved child, with a disability, disappears in the vast ocean, kidnapped by a giant creature who has taken the child away in his faster-than-you-could-ever-swim vessel. As the mother of an autistic child who could wander off at any time, this is not "cute" or "darling" or "heart-warming." This is sheer terror. But Sabrina has demanded "ishy" and so she shall receive. I just can't stay in the room.

Another movie that I might have tolerated better had I not been a mom is A.I. I love Kubrick, who was planning to make the movie, and I like Spielberg, who did make the movie. But it broke my heart into a million little pieces. I had given birth to David only months before I saw A.I., and it didn't help that the android child played by Haley Joel Osment is named David. I couldn't even enjoy the thought of hiring android male prostitute Jude Law for a little hanky-panky. And I loves me some Jude Law. When the mother dumps David in the woods because she mistakenly believes he is a danger to her "real" child? Killed me. My husband actually bought the DVD of A.I. I am so tempted for it to just disappear.