Why I Am Glad My Daughter Saw The New Hunger Games

Over the Christmas break, we watched the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. By the middle of the movie, I started regretting bringing our 8-year-old son to it. The previous Hunger Games had some gore moments, but at least you could count on good defeating evil at the end.

This one, instead, starts with a young, ambitious, and relatively pure-hearted main hero who progressively goes deeper into survival mode, fear, and darkness.

A questionable movie to take an 8-year-old to, but a good moment to discuss life with your 12-year-old.

I asked my teen daughter what she would do if she were Snow. She sounded depressed, "Ma, he started trying to do good things but somehow ended up deeper in the mess. I don’t know what I would do in his shoes. It was so unfair."

Yep. Life can certainly be messy, unfair, and dark, so this was my moment-of-teaching a life lesson:

"Sometimes the deck of cards we have been dealt seems stacked against us.

My only solution is to find something that you love so much that it makes your life worth living, despite all the troubles. And then live for that and from that. Draw support and encouragement from what gives your life meaning, whatever that is.

Don't look for others to give you the answer.

It is a privilege to find out what your life is for. It can be being a parent, doing a job you care for, or loving nature, art, or God.

It doesn't have to be grand or society-approved. It might be something that others relate to or that most people find pointless or ridiculous. It might give you a ton of outward success and recognition or none.

That's not the point. The point is that you will receive something far more important - the feeling of gratitude for a chance to exist and be yourself. A feeling of, “Thank heaven I get to live.” In life where many things make so little sense, living for what you love is the best bet you've got.