Parenthood is replete with madeleines. Not just in the cake form – when I was struggling to breastfeed and trying to up my milk supply, I bought bags and bags of them, dipped in chocolate – but the famous Proustian kind. These small encounters with objects or sounds or smells act as nostalgic triggers, with the ability to catapult you back to moments in your childhood that you had long forgotten with a surprising emotional force.
It’s perhaps less romantic when you discover that Proust initially wanted to use toast for his metaphor. Although, actually, I’ve always found toast to be hugely evocative. The sight of a schoolboy on a September morning cradling a slice in a sheet of kitchen roll reminded me recently of how my mother – along with, I suspect, mothers everywhere – used to thrust toast into my hands as I rushed out of the door, late for the bus.
Then, this week, another madeleine, this time in the form of Disney. More specifically, the intro: the flag, the fireworks, the screen panning out to show the pitched turrets of the castle. The strings playing When You Wish Upon a Star. My god. I had forgotten all about it, but in a split second I was four again, lying on the floor of the living room in our little terraced house in Chorlton, Manchester, with the lights out and all the curtains closed and the VHS of The Jungle Book starting up for the 15th time that week. Years of ambivalence towards, and at times even discomfort with, the Disney corporation swept away in one fell swoop, compounded by the look of sheer, transfixed delight on my child’s face as he watched Winnie the Pooh singing about honey. Take my money, Disney, take it all!
Disney is, of course, powered by this kind of adult nostalgia. It is part of its modus operandi, and central to its profit motive. I’m also aware that “Disney adults” – as grownups who really, really love Disney are termed – are widely disdained, to the point that they have been called “the most hated group on the internet”. The studio turns 100 this year, and has released a short film containing a plethora of characters new and old in celebration, many of which I recognised from my own childhood viewing. Yet it left me fairly cold.
Though I was raised on Disney fairytales, my mother always made sure that its more saccharine, gendered, princess output (of which I was a faithful acolyte) was counterbalanced with feminist alternatives. Then, when I grew up, I read From the Beast to the Blonde and The Bloody Chamber. So I’m very aware of the Disney-fication of traditional fairytales and the gender stereotyping that (particularly older) Disney princess films peddle, while recognising that little girls are probably better off watching a Sleeping Beauty that doesn’t contain rape and cannibalism, even if she does have a 22in waist. (Incidentally, I was bemused to hear rumours that Disney will be adapting Bluebeard. Just how, exactly, do you manage to put a happy Disney filter on that tale of imprisonment and decapitation?)
That’s before you get to the racial stereotyping, from Dumbo to Aladdin, and Song of the South – a film so racist that Disney has prevented its release on any home video or streaming platform, but I’m old enough to remember Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah playing at the end of other features as part of Disney singalong. I’m not about to start donning a pair of Minnie Mouse ears in the queue for the It’s a Small World ride, let’s put it that way.
That doesn’t mean that I’m immune, though, now that I have my own small boy whose face lights up at the sight of Christopher Robin. This is potent stuff, and I won’t be the last parent willing to overlook their principles because of something that makes their child happy. In fact, I’ve been fairly laissez-faire about lots of things you might expect a Guardian columnist to get annoyed about, from ultra-processed melty puffs to screen time. Everyone has their own red lines, in parenthood. Mine happen to be toy guns and kids’ clothes with slogans on them. But Disney? There has been much improvement in recent years in terms of representation, and I genuinely enjoyed watching Mary Poppins Returns at Christmas, even tearing up about the poor, bereaved Banks children. (Disney has never shied away from death – like many of his generation, my father remembers having to be taken, traumatised, out of Bambi.)
One of the questions new parents seem to ask a lot is, “When does it get easier?” A friend with a newborn recently said she’s looking forward to this, and I avoided telling her that I found 6-12 months even harder than the first bit. But another friend reassuringly puts a marker on it; it gets easier, she says, when they’ll sit through a whole Disney feature and you can go about your business. That is, of course, if you don’t spend the whole film mooning over their smile.
What’s working
I didn’t enjoy the weaning phase – I was too sleep deprived, and too anxious about choking – but one of the things that did make it easier was batch-cooking a slow-simmered tomato sauce, which I then froze in bulk. I’m still doing it, and, combined with precooked frozen pasta, or this pizza dough recipe, it’s saved me more time than I can quantify.
What’s not
We are seeing some signs of toddler tantrums now. He doesn’t want to sit in his high chair, or get out of the swing, or go in the bath, which can be maddening. The thing is, I think the baby knows what he’s doing. There’s a page of the book My Big Shouting Day! where the little girl rolls around the floor yelling “NO BED NO NO NO NO BED NO NO!” He thinks it’s the funniest thing he’s ever seen.
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist
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