Do not — I repeat, do not! — watch We Bought a Zoo with your young, impressionable child. It’s a much better family film for when your kids become sassy tweens and need to see that parents are people too, and doing the best they can, and that their own lives aren’t so angsty after all. But I digress. …
There’s also a lot of unsavory language in the film, and needless to say, Owen learned some new words yesterday (the possibility of there not being an Easter bunny was also introduced in the film, on Easter, no less). He didn’t pick up on “shit,” “dammit,” or “asshole.” “Dick” was mildly amusing to him because a kid said it, but the one he perceived as being the worst in the film … well, let the conversation speak for itself:
Owen: “There was a really bad word in the movie Mommy and I watched today.”
Daddy: “Oh? What was it?”
Owen: “FRAUD! The man in the movie was named Mr. Mee, and they said, ‘Mr. Mee is a fraud!’ It sounded like a really bad word.”
So Owen learned a new vocabulary word, which outshined all of the not-so-nice words in the film (it was PG, don’t judge me!), and we learned that our kid is really still very innocent.