Turning Red

Being a thirteen year old middle schooler is tough! I mean you’re stuck between being a child and trying to be a full grown adult with no job, no car and no means to really care for yourself.

Mei Mei comes from a family and culture where children are expected to do everything they possibly can to please their parents, especially their mothers! This is tough because no child is perfect and peer pressure is very real!

In the same breath, Mei Mei has her own mind and shows interest in some things her mom would never approve of. She wants to be a perfect daughter but not at the expense of her own individuality. This breeds lots of lying and sneaking around because she just can’t bring herself to stand up to her mom. It’s hard to be yourself when your parents don’t really approve of your music, your friends or even the way you like to dress! Being a teenager brings about inevitable change and so its important that parents try to be as supportive as we possibly can, even when we don’t want to.

Mei Mei‘s Red Panda is forced out by her hovering mother who holds unrealistic expectations over her daughters head. She is terribly strict and completely oblivious to her daughters teenage desires. She puts so much pressure on her daughter to be perfect that it ultimately leads to their very strained relationship!

What’s worse is that Mei Mei’s mom is only doing everything she can to keep her daughter from making mistakes like she did when she was a young girl! This means Mei Mei is stuck paying for the mistakes her mother made and that’s just not fair.

Parenting out of fear is unhealthy and it often leads to poor relationships between parents and their children. Of course you want to set boundaries and high expectations and not allow your child to run completely wild, but you also want to show some genuine interest in the things your child likes and find ways to compromise too.

I’m sure it was hard for Ming to watch her little girl growing up so fast, wanting to keep her young and innocent for the rest of her life, but that just isn't the way this all works.

The Red Panda was surely representation of that inner wild side we all have! We sometimes need to let that side of ourselves out and live a little. We also need to acknowledge the fact that there are parts of us that aren’t so cute.

As sure as we live, we will grow and change and make mistakes! It’s all a part the process! It’s all a part of life!

Keep the panda!