Post by celrock on Sept 20, 2017 14:35:02 GMT
Hello there,
It's me, Celeste, AKA celrock again.
First of all, you may recall how back when I submitted my feedback on Losing Nana Bishop, I stated how I couldn't wait for another Macy centered episode. Well, looky here! Another Macy centered episode! So first, I'd like to say thank you to the creaters of As Told by Ginger for doing this.
Now, on to talking about why in my opinion, this episode deserves a Super Yay. Yes, not just a yay, but a super yay. So of course, basically the plot of the episode is that Macy is turning 13, her parents have forgotten her birthday, and Ginger convinces Macy to confront her parents about this, though Macy of course is shy about doing it, so Ginger helps out, and in doing so by confronting Macy's parents, they make it up to her, by throwing her a kid's party.
Just as I felt a personal connection with the last episode I posted about, I also feel a very personal connection with this one here too. Now you should know that my family has never forgotten about my birthday in the 32 years I've been alive, and will be coming up on my 33rd. birthday this coming December. If anything, the rest of the world is probably more prone to not remembering it's my birthday, being lucky some years if anybody other than my family, even wished me a happy birthday on my special day, especially as I've gotten older. And of course, I'll never forget last year, when somebody who I thought was my friend over on Fan Fiction, had planned out writing a birthday story for me, in response to the birthday story request I had honored for them the year before back in 2016, only to in the end, not only not finish my birthday story we had been planning out all year, but their excuse for doing so, was because actress, Carrey Fisher had died, which to me, I thought was a pretty lame excuse to throw in the towel on my story, and post confronting them about this, they've only been showing me their true colors since that moment, proving to not be my friend, but rather, just the opposite, a cyber bullying troll, who got his mother and my parents involved in the whole ordeal on Facebook, pressuring me into thinking this person could do no harm, while at the same time, trying to get my parents to get me to stop writing Fan Fiction all together.
However, while that was pretty awful and something I'll never forget, even though my mom actually liked the stories I had posted and I still write Fan Fiction to this day, so long as I have the time and am not suffering from writer's block, where this episode is concerned, I relate to the Family Therapy episode in the sense that my parents haven't always treated me like my current age. As you may or may not know, I'm very young at heart, and to give you an idea of the things that interest me, I have a huge collection of Disney movies on DVD, if I'm up late and there's a Rugrats marathon airing on Nick Splat, I never miss it because it's my favorite Nicktoon of all-times, and in fact, that's the main fandom I write for over on Fan Fiction, and I could get down on the floor and play for hours on end with my nephew and never get bored, or feel I'm being too juvanile, as I even stayed down in the basement playroom just the other day after he went up to take his bath and had some fun with my old dollhouse, remembering the hours I spent with it as a child. However, my parents and how they have treated me over the years, is a different story.
No, it wasn't as exaggerated as we see here with Macy's 13th. birthday party taking place at a petting zoo, and maybe it's because I suffer from multiple disabilities that include blindness, a hearing impairment, mild Cerebral Palsy and ADHD, but I'll give you all a few examples of ways my folks have not exactly treated me like an adult, when I feel they should have stepped back a bit.
All throughout highschool, post getting my first cell phone, which was back in the days of the old dinky flip phones in the early 2000's during As Told by Ginger's original run, granted, I did have to get up early for school as first period started at 7:25 AM, I had a phone curfew of 10:00 PM at night on school nights, and no calls before 5:00 or 5:30 AM on school mornings. If I broke this rule too many times, I had my phone taken away, and I only had to break the rule once of calling my boyfriend I had at the time at 4:45 AM, which, he was awake as he was an early riser naturally, to have it grounded from me for two days, missing receiving an important voicemail and opportunity to do some shadowing internship day at my town's local radio station, because by the time my grounding sentence was up, and I had received the voicemail, the position had already been filled. I think what really makes me cringe now as an adult, is that I do have a handful of teenage friends over on Fan Fiction, who don't have nearly as strict of a curfew on school nights with their modern day technology gadgets as I had as a child.
We were even on Dialup Internet until I convinced my father to get us Broadband when I started college so long as I paid for it, and simply for taking too much time on my dad's computer, he password protected the Internet at that point, causing me to have to ask him to log me on to the computer whenever I wanted to get online.
And I'll never forget this one time at age 15 or 16, when I was upset that mom and I couldn't go to the movies because her knee hurt. I got upset, and once I went to my room, I sat down to write in my diary about it to help me calm down. Not for long though, as my dad storms in and makes me get on my bed and stop writing, in the middle of what I was doing. I don't think I ever touched that diary again after that, and having that entry end in the middle of a sentence baffled me for a while after that, as to this day, I can't recall what I was going to say next.
It doesn't stop there either. Whenever my parents got mad at me post my becoming a teenager, they'd threaten to take away everything I loved for an indefinite amount of time, even at age 22, when I was home alone and talking to my boyfriend on the phone, and my brother kept beeping in because he forgot his keys to close up the store where he was working at the time, but seeing I couldn't drive and had no way to get the keys to him, his repeatedly calling me and interrupting my phone call with my boyfriend was getting him nowhere, and I finally lost it, and angrily told him to stop. My parents were furious with me when they found out, taking my brother's side and claiming what he was doing was okay, and they threatened to ground me from using the phone and taking away my cell phone for a month if I ever did anything like that again. And in 2007, I forget what my father and I were arguing about, but he claimed my boyfriend to be a bad influence on me, and he even out right said, "You deserve a spanking." And yes, he did use to spank me as a young child up until my mom put a stop to it when I was in second grade.
Even after I turned 18, up until I more or less, moved out at age 25, while they lifted the curfew on phone use once I started college, letting me be in charge of my own schedule so long as I got plenty of sleep and didn't miss my classes, I felt like for me, unless I was home alone, I had no room for independence. I always ate meals with my family, which my parents fixed, and in some cases, it was hard for me to fix my own breakfast if they slept late, because their fridge would be so cluttered, it would be hard to find what I was looking for.
I don't think my parents really started treating me like an adult until I moved out in June of 2010 and got the apartment I'm living in now. Well okay, so I had eye surgery shortly after moving out, and for a month during the recovery period, they insisted I stay at their house to recover, and didn't give me any choice in the matter, but post completing that recovery period, they've finally realized that I'm growing up, thus, it's time to treat me like an adult.
Sure, they feed me when I'm at their house, but I don't mind it now since I feed myself when I'm at home at my apartment. My family use to constantly complain about what I liked to listen to or watch, which they don't do anymore, and if we do have a disagreement or I do something that's out of line and not to their liking, the most they'll threaten me with now is making me go home from their house early, or not ever seeing my nephew again, if I said something I shouldn't have said in front of him, angry in the heat of the moment, setting a bad example. We usually apologize, and all is cool. However, when thinking back on it though, it's been very frustrating growing up with my parents, feeling like they didn't exactly treat me the way I wish they had treated me. So in this sense, I think in a way, it's somewhat the opposite of how Macy felt, as she was glad to get attention from her parents, even if it was on a juvanile scale, because she didn't get attention from her folks during childhood. Somehow I wouldn't be surprised if on Hey Arnold, Helga's parents forget about her birthday like what happened with Macy here on this show, had Hey Arnold taken place with the characters slightly older. However, that's getting off topic. The point is, I think the main difference is here, that in a way, links up to the same alterior motive is, for Macy, it was making up for lost time where her parents were concerned, while I truly believe where it stems with my parents, with me being their youngest child, and the more naieve one out of me and my older brother, they didn't want to let go, and give me the freedom to spread my wings and fly out of the nest. I actually had to run away from home shortly before moving out to prove to them I was ready to get my own place and be on my own if that's saying anything. Yes, I've had to act rebellious and take extreme measures to move on to the next level, which hasn't been easy. However, in the end, for both, myself and Macy, it's learning how in life, there are some things we must put behind us, and making that important decision of moving forward, when we feel the time is right, and taking that giant leap in moving forward.
I admire Macy for standing up to Ginger here, just as I've had to stand up to my parents, and hopefully, in future episodes, we'll continue to see Macy grow and mature even more. Sure, she may always be young at heart, and I'm sure she'll always have a special place in her heart for The Littlest Seal Girl all throughout her life, just as I'll never stop liking Rugrats, but when you stop letting your parents treat you like a child and give you some breezing room for independence and treating you more like your actual age, it really shows some maturity.
It's me, Celeste, AKA celrock again.
First of all, you may recall how back when I submitted my feedback on Losing Nana Bishop, I stated how I couldn't wait for another Macy centered episode. Well, looky here! Another Macy centered episode! So first, I'd like to say thank you to the creaters of As Told by Ginger for doing this.
Now, on to talking about why in my opinion, this episode deserves a Super Yay. Yes, not just a yay, but a super yay. So of course, basically the plot of the episode is that Macy is turning 13, her parents have forgotten her birthday, and Ginger convinces Macy to confront her parents about this, though Macy of course is shy about doing it, so Ginger helps out, and in doing so by confronting Macy's parents, they make it up to her, by throwing her a kid's party.
Just as I felt a personal connection with the last episode I posted about, I also feel a very personal connection with this one here too. Now you should know that my family has never forgotten about my birthday in the 32 years I've been alive, and will be coming up on my 33rd. birthday this coming December. If anything, the rest of the world is probably more prone to not remembering it's my birthday, being lucky some years if anybody other than my family, even wished me a happy birthday on my special day, especially as I've gotten older. And of course, I'll never forget last year, when somebody who I thought was my friend over on Fan Fiction, had planned out writing a birthday story for me, in response to the birthday story request I had honored for them the year before back in 2016, only to in the end, not only not finish my birthday story we had been planning out all year, but their excuse for doing so, was because actress, Carrey Fisher had died, which to me, I thought was a pretty lame excuse to throw in the towel on my story, and post confronting them about this, they've only been showing me their true colors since that moment, proving to not be my friend, but rather, just the opposite, a cyber bullying troll, who got his mother and my parents involved in the whole ordeal on Facebook, pressuring me into thinking this person could do no harm, while at the same time, trying to get my parents to get me to stop writing Fan Fiction all together.
However, while that was pretty awful and something I'll never forget, even though my mom actually liked the stories I had posted and I still write Fan Fiction to this day, so long as I have the time and am not suffering from writer's block, where this episode is concerned, I relate to the Family Therapy episode in the sense that my parents haven't always treated me like my current age. As you may or may not know, I'm very young at heart, and to give you an idea of the things that interest me, I have a huge collection of Disney movies on DVD, if I'm up late and there's a Rugrats marathon airing on Nick Splat, I never miss it because it's my favorite Nicktoon of all-times, and in fact, that's the main fandom I write for over on Fan Fiction, and I could get down on the floor and play for hours on end with my nephew and never get bored, or feel I'm being too juvanile, as I even stayed down in the basement playroom just the other day after he went up to take his bath and had some fun with my old dollhouse, remembering the hours I spent with it as a child. However, my parents and how they have treated me over the years, is a different story.
No, it wasn't as exaggerated as we see here with Macy's 13th. birthday party taking place at a petting zoo, and maybe it's because I suffer from multiple disabilities that include blindness, a hearing impairment, mild Cerebral Palsy and ADHD, but I'll give you all a few examples of ways my folks have not exactly treated me like an adult, when I feel they should have stepped back a bit.
All throughout highschool, post getting my first cell phone, which was back in the days of the old dinky flip phones in the early 2000's during As Told by Ginger's original run, granted, I did have to get up early for school as first period started at 7:25 AM, I had a phone curfew of 10:00 PM at night on school nights, and no calls before 5:00 or 5:30 AM on school mornings. If I broke this rule too many times, I had my phone taken away, and I only had to break the rule once of calling my boyfriend I had at the time at 4:45 AM, which, he was awake as he was an early riser naturally, to have it grounded from me for two days, missing receiving an important voicemail and opportunity to do some shadowing internship day at my town's local radio station, because by the time my grounding sentence was up, and I had received the voicemail, the position had already been filled. I think what really makes me cringe now as an adult, is that I do have a handful of teenage friends over on Fan Fiction, who don't have nearly as strict of a curfew on school nights with their modern day technology gadgets as I had as a child.
We were even on Dialup Internet until I convinced my father to get us Broadband when I started college so long as I paid for it, and simply for taking too much time on my dad's computer, he password protected the Internet at that point, causing me to have to ask him to log me on to the computer whenever I wanted to get online.
And I'll never forget this one time at age 15 or 16, when I was upset that mom and I couldn't go to the movies because her knee hurt. I got upset, and once I went to my room, I sat down to write in my diary about it to help me calm down. Not for long though, as my dad storms in and makes me get on my bed and stop writing, in the middle of what I was doing. I don't think I ever touched that diary again after that, and having that entry end in the middle of a sentence baffled me for a while after that, as to this day, I can't recall what I was going to say next.
It doesn't stop there either. Whenever my parents got mad at me post my becoming a teenager, they'd threaten to take away everything I loved for an indefinite amount of time, even at age 22, when I was home alone and talking to my boyfriend on the phone, and my brother kept beeping in because he forgot his keys to close up the store where he was working at the time, but seeing I couldn't drive and had no way to get the keys to him, his repeatedly calling me and interrupting my phone call with my boyfriend was getting him nowhere, and I finally lost it, and angrily told him to stop. My parents were furious with me when they found out, taking my brother's side and claiming what he was doing was okay, and they threatened to ground me from using the phone and taking away my cell phone for a month if I ever did anything like that again. And in 2007, I forget what my father and I were arguing about, but he claimed my boyfriend to be a bad influence on me, and he even out right said, "You deserve a spanking." And yes, he did use to spank me as a young child up until my mom put a stop to it when I was in second grade.
Even after I turned 18, up until I more or less, moved out at age 25, while they lifted the curfew on phone use once I started college, letting me be in charge of my own schedule so long as I got plenty of sleep and didn't miss my classes, I felt like for me, unless I was home alone, I had no room for independence. I always ate meals with my family, which my parents fixed, and in some cases, it was hard for me to fix my own breakfast if they slept late, because their fridge would be so cluttered, it would be hard to find what I was looking for.
I don't think my parents really started treating me like an adult until I moved out in June of 2010 and got the apartment I'm living in now. Well okay, so I had eye surgery shortly after moving out, and for a month during the recovery period, they insisted I stay at their house to recover, and didn't give me any choice in the matter, but post completing that recovery period, they've finally realized that I'm growing up, thus, it's time to treat me like an adult.
Sure, they feed me when I'm at their house, but I don't mind it now since I feed myself when I'm at home at my apartment. My family use to constantly complain about what I liked to listen to or watch, which they don't do anymore, and if we do have a disagreement or I do something that's out of line and not to their liking, the most they'll threaten me with now is making me go home from their house early, or not ever seeing my nephew again, if I said something I shouldn't have said in front of him, angry in the heat of the moment, setting a bad example. We usually apologize, and all is cool. However, when thinking back on it though, it's been very frustrating growing up with my parents, feeling like they didn't exactly treat me the way I wish they had treated me. So in this sense, I think in a way, it's somewhat the opposite of how Macy felt, as she was glad to get attention from her parents, even if it was on a juvanile scale, because she didn't get attention from her folks during childhood. Somehow I wouldn't be surprised if on Hey Arnold, Helga's parents forget about her birthday like what happened with Macy here on this show, had Hey Arnold taken place with the characters slightly older. However, that's getting off topic. The point is, I think the main difference is here, that in a way, links up to the same alterior motive is, for Macy, it was making up for lost time where her parents were concerned, while I truly believe where it stems with my parents, with me being their youngest child, and the more naieve one out of me and my older brother, they didn't want to let go, and give me the freedom to spread my wings and fly out of the nest. I actually had to run away from home shortly before moving out to prove to them I was ready to get my own place and be on my own if that's saying anything. Yes, I've had to act rebellious and take extreme measures to move on to the next level, which hasn't been easy. However, in the end, for both, myself and Macy, it's learning how in life, there are some things we must put behind us, and making that important decision of moving forward, when we feel the time is right, and taking that giant leap in moving forward.
I admire Macy for standing up to Ginger here, just as I've had to stand up to my parents, and hopefully, in future episodes, we'll continue to see Macy grow and mature even more. Sure, she may always be young at heart, and I'm sure she'll always have a special place in her heart for The Littlest Seal Girl all throughout her life, just as I'll never stop liking Rugrats, but when you stop letting your parents treat you like a child and give you some breezing room for independence and treating you more like your actual age, it really shows some maturity.