Through the seasons before us..

A few random thoughts sparked this off, and it started – oddly – with Star Wars of all things.  The initial conversation I had with a friend some time ago, was that if you had a child and wanted to introduce them to the greatness that is Star Wars when they’re old enough, do you show them episodes 4-6, then 1-3 – which is how we experienced them, or do you show them in ‘chronological’ order, which is the order of the story.

There are pitfalls in either direction – if you go for episodes 1-6, then the Darth Vader “I am your father” line loses all its impact, since you’d be well aware that Darth Vader was once Luke’s dad before he turned to the dark side.  However, showing it 4-6 then 1-3 means that you aren’t remotely surprised that Anakin Skywalker will become seduced by the dark side, or that Senator Palpatine will become the evil Emperor – which again, if viewed before the earlier films, could be quite a dramatic shock in the story line.

But anyway, enough about Star Wars, this is a Forest blog afterall!  If you have a child you will naturally want them to inherit your love of Forest, hopefully leading to opportunities of shared father/mother and son/daughter type experiences in the future.  So in attempting to manipulate your offspring into following Forest, do you just take them down to watch a bunch of League One cloggers taking on similar lowly teams, or do you start with an education in our great heritage?

It’s difficult enough, I imagine, to steer them away from the hype of blindly becoming a Chelsea or Liverpool fan – so maybe you should start by pointing out we were once on a par, and exceeded, these clubs – but then, is that cruel given that it currently seems very unlikely that we will ever match or come close to those achievements any time soon!  So just how can you influence your offspring to follow in your footsteps and subject them to a life of misery following Forest?

I heard the following story from a friend, so I’ve no idea how true it is, but it made me laugh nonetheless, so I’ll share it here.  Recently a Forest fan dad had this very dilemma facing him, and it just so happened that his name was the same as a current Forest midfielder.  Desperate that his son didn’t become a Chelsea ‘fan’, he actually managed to successfully blag to the either very young or very gullible child that he actually was that Forest midfielder.  Obviously as any child idolises their dad, it worked a treat in convincing the child that Forest were where his loyalties were to lie.

There are obvious pitfalls to this approach – firstly, you can’t take him to games, since you’re supposed to be playing in them, and clearly won’t be!  Secondly, children don’t have to be too old nowadays to know how to find stuff out on the Internet, and you’d surely be rumbled.  And then of course, the player you’ve assumed the identity of could leave the club – as this one has – which means there’s a danger of your son’s loyalties transferring to the players new club, unless you make a hasty confession!

What lengths would you go to to get your children to follow Forest?  Or would your protective parental instinct mean that you would want to save them from the inevitable hurt and frustration such an occupation leads to?

Filed under: Thoughts