Why Can’t Superman Save My Son From Chucky?

Facing down his son’s fears, a father wonders why imaginary monsters are more real than imaginary heroes.

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My eight-year-old boy has fears.

So do I, but his are different.

He’s not afraid of dying young, losing his hair, or not finding a partner to spend the rest of his days with.

He’s classically afraid of the dark—the dimly lit, too—and the maniacally malevolent creatures that murder children in the night.

Lately, it’s Chucky.

He hasn’t watched the movies—or any videos to my knowledge—but he’s seen some pictures of the red-headed menace and heard some stories from his friends.

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Now my son is fairly advanced for eight and a pretty pragmatic guy. He knows there’s no Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy (he caught me putting the money under his pillow), and this Christmas may be Santa’s last for us. So why is he terrified of a grinning, mop-topped doll that’s nothing more than a character in a film? I’m aware that his fear is a projection of something larger, but in trying to help him overcome it, I came across a fascinating discovery that seemed worthy of sharing. It occurred to me that kids have absolutely no trouble recognizing that superheroes—whether portrayed in cartoons or by actual actors—aren’t real, but when it comes to monsters and dastardly deed-doers, the same logic doesn’t apply.

I asked both my children (my older son is 11) why they thought this was so, but neither one couldn’t explain it, and I don’t have a definitive answer myself. So I’m posing the question here, in a public forum frequented by other fathers, to see if our collective insight might crowdsource some wisdom.

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The most likely reason I can come up with is that children transfer and attach their external fears to the embodiments of evil, because to kids, these fears—of actual bad things happening—are real and immediate and at times overwhelming, while their faith that there might be a square-chested protector just around the corner clothed in a cape, brandishing a magic ring, or sheltering bystanders with his shield is iffy at best. And these days, kids are more aware than ever that bad stuff such as school shootings, terrorist attacks, plane crashes, and devastating natural disasters, actually happens, while caped crusaders or webbed wonders swooping in to save the damsel or dude in distress are nowhere to be seen. Of course, psychologists and sociologists trace our fear of the dark back to early days when we really did need to be wary of nighttime predators, meaning it’s a programmed response in the brain that’s inherited. And there’s apparently no similar preset reaction that presupposes the presence of a superhero or savior. So while we’re saturated with images of supernaturally endowed specimens from the start of our screen-watching, we experience them as modern inventions, not prehistoric presences that resonate in the deepest recesses of our gray matter.

Maybe this seems obvious to everyone, but it’s my take on it. I’m curious to know what others think. Why do kids process superheroes as imaginary but get stuck on fake monsters like Chucky as real?

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This post is republished on Medium.

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Photo credit: Shutterstock