The cartoons are coming for our collective trauma
It’s no secret that I love animation- it’s my first love in terms of narrative media. You probably guessed that by my taking up such an absurd pandemic hobby. When I was a teenager I actually planned to be an animator for a long time.
This month, due to a combination of Starling’s preK media preferences and my own initiative I’ve watched Luca, Encanto, and Turning Red a dozen times each, and the entirety of Steven Universe on rewatch.
I’m not going to give any spoilers on any of those, but If you’ve watched them then it’s incredibly clear that intergenerational trauma is a major theme in all of them.
I’m 38 years old- roughly the age category of most of the people making those wonderful stories. And that makes me old enough to be very, very sure that this was not a major theme in children’s media when we were kids. Not in the US, anyways. I spent a lot of the 80s and 90s watching cartoons, and I’m pretty sure about this one.
As a trauma-focused therapist, parent, and storyteller, I am absolutely consumed this month with analyzing this zeitgeist, and imagining what it might mean for the future.
I had no idea when I was writing these themes into my own YA work that I was part of some kind of larger moment in youth media, yet somehow I’ve landed right in the midst of it.
Why are my peers and I so obsessed with this theme in telling stories to the next generation?
It’s not as if the generations preceding us weren’t also trauma-saturated. Few of the worlds evils are new. Maybe the traditional gatekeepers of mainstream storytelling in past decades were somewhat less likely to be bearing the brunt of those traumas, but still.
I know that kids stories have always warned about the wolf in the woods, the troll under the bridge, the dangers that lurk outside your front door. And I would expect those who have experienced trauma to lean harder into that. Those who have come neck-to-teeth with those metaphorical wolves will naturally be likely to hear growling around every corner. It’s not odd for that to show up in their relationships, especially their relationships to people they need to protect.
I spend a lot of time teaching people to cope with their own trauma and the trauma they inherited from caregivers whose healing was pretty limited.
I’m startled to find these conversations hitting the mainstream so abruptly and in this way. We’re suddenly pivoting to stories about the dangers inside the home. the bite marks scarring the hearts and minds of beloved caregivers, and the way those scars may warp them and cause ripples of further wounds.
Someone on twitter suggested that these stories are first and foremost a Millenial fantasy of seeing parents actually apologize. I can’t discount that theory, but I have another one. Because my parents were never stingy with apologies, and here I am, writing the same thing.
I bet that a fair percentage of the people building these stories are also parents. I suspect that more than fantasizing about character growth for our parents, many of my contemporaries are reaching out to the younger generation with an apology of our own.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these cartoon caregivers are messing up- but are still written sympathetically. They are written by parents slipping a plea for forgiveness into the verses of the latest Disney bop.
The traumas aren’t new. But I think the way we’re talking about them is starting to change. Millenials and Gen X are both known, frankly, for “bad attitudes”- complaining, dissatisfaction, and discontent. There are super real economic and situational reasons for that that I hope I don’t even need to explain, but it’s also an aspect of a social shift towards it being ok to directly call out and name problems in a way that’s been taboo around here for some time.
When you can actually just say that everything sucks, you can call a spade a spade and you can call trauma trauma.
But recognizing that trauma has shaped you doesn’t erase it’s effects. If you don’t have access to the resources to heal from that it can just give you a brand new list of ways you’re afraid you’re going to fail. I couldn’t begin to count the number of people I’ve known who express terror of passing down the damaging trauma-born attitudes and behaviors of their own experiences and that of their parents or guardians.
So outside the front door, our children face climate devastation, school shootings that have somehow worsened since we were kids, and escalating carceral over-reach, in addition to most of the shit we grew up with, including worrying about Russian military escalation again.
Inside the house, they have to deal with the parents who grew up with school shootings, the war on drugs, and well… everything that went into being a kid in the 90s or 80s.
But when we were kids, the message in the media was that everything was basically fine. There was no problem.
Now, we know what’s out there is messed up, and we are blessed and cursed with the knowledge that an awful lot of us are messed up, to.
Every generation of parents want to be good parents, and build a better world for their kids. I think people used to be a lot more confident that they could achieve that than parents are today.
Apparently the result is a bunch of heartfelt, charming, beautifully crafted warning/apologies in cartoon form.
There is danger outside, and I might not know how to protect you.
There is danger inside, and I might not know how to protect you.
Be careful.
I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.
I tried so hard.
That gets a bit bleak. But ultimately, it’s not where the story ends.
Because what happens next is a generation of kids and teens growing up seeing through the coping mechanisms and intergenerational misunderstandings in a way no living generation has been able to. A generation who grows up understanding trauma and it’s effects and maybe will get a head start on addressing things.
What happens at that point will depend on whether their parents (my peers) can still call a spade a spade when confronted with the inevitable shortcomings of their own parenting and ability to fix the world for their children. Will we, collectively, become defensive? The first generation to be exposed early to social media isn’t actually always that good at being comfortable with being perceived. But you can’t get your kids to see you as the Instagram-filter version of yourself.
If we can stay honest, I think it gives us a chance to build far stronger, more supportive families, and start addressing trauma on a culture-wide level in ways I don’t think we can imagine today.
I’m holding on to that hope.
So tell me- what do you think is the future of trauma?
As always, if you've enjoyed this email, please feel free to share it with others. I want more penpals! And you can now get Secondhand Origin Stories, as an ebook, for free, on Itch.io here.
Hope I hear from you,
Lee Brontide