Family Mythology
“Hey dad, maybe tonight we should use our flashlights and try and track down some will-o-the-whisps”.
That is what came out of Jack’s mouth over breakfast this morning. No, really.
Before that creative suggestion, he and Lucie were making strange noises and scratching under the table, then asking “what was that?!” They were trying to draw me into our family mythology.
We all have family mythologies (I hope). These are the stories we tell each other, the places and people and things we create through play. Perhaps you have a red-suited, bearded man or a giant egg-bearing bunny in your family mythology? Perhaps you have other things as well.
As we have played over the years, read stories, told stories, sang lullabies and the like, Christie and I have developed a little set of fantasy worlds of our own. And it always makes me smile when the kids want to return to them. For us they are funny little stories or nove little concepts. For the children, they are real dreams and hope and fears and adventures.
We build on our family mythology when the kids as me to sing them the “Dragon’s Keep” lullaby I made up because I couldn’t remember any good lullabies. Or when they ask Christie to sing a song about a mad scientist and a princess before they go to sleep.
There was the story about Tiny Timothy who was stuck in a garbage can, and so sad about it that his tears filled the can, letting Timmy float up and out to freedom. Then there was the scratching beast.
That scratching sound has become the greatest part of our family mythology… The Hoogerman.
This mythical beast was created over time, but began while we were on a pretend camping trip in the living room. The Hoogerman was my ghost story. A large, bear and ape cross-breed who stalks the woods and scratches on doors with giant claws. Hoogerman stories always end with “and it was …. THE HOOGERMAN!”, and the kids screaming and laughing.
Do you have a family mythology? Or did you, growing up?