A Tale of Two Martins

Some stories never get old. I think that Martin's Day, a film directed by Alan Gibson, is one such story. It's about a captive named Martin Steckart (played by Richard Harris) who escapes out of prison and abducts a boy also named Martin (played by Justin Henry) to keep the police away. The two Martins form an unlikely friendship as they get away from their respective prisons (the old Martin's freedom from the police cell and the young Martin's freedom from the prison of his uncaring mom and inattentive step-dad). In a scene from the film, the lieutenant in charge of catching Martin Steckart dead or alive, asks Dr. Mennen, "How come they are having such a great time and we are not?" And the doctor (played by Lindsay Wagner) answers, "Because it's our job to put them back in (the prison)." And out of the prison the two Martins are! In their stay away from a rule based world, they rob a service station, hold a toy truck in transit, hijack a train (allowing the young Martin to fulfill one of his dreams of driving a train), take a hike in the woods, have an overnight stay in an abandoned shack, take a canoe ride across water and have the time of their life. By the end of the film, the boy chooses to stay with Martin even though he could run away.

And as you watch the film, you can't not relate to what the two are going through. It is actually a sort of liberation for them both. The young Martin comes from a world where he can't eat candies, has to keep off the grass and cannot have any pet. And suddenly, he comes across this man Martin Steckart who tells him, "Well, god damn the dentist...You like candies, don't you? Well, you are my prisoner and if you don't eat them then I will just break your head in." 

I think that very often in trying to protect our loved ones, we form fences that are no less than virtual prisons. Do your homework, eat your dinner on time, go to bed at 9 and the like. All all this in the name of that one thing called discipline. But one has to really stop and think when discipline goes over the board and starts becoming an imprisonment. In the film, Dr Mennen puts it brilliantly when she says, "Most kids grow up with "don't fight me", "do your homework", "eat your dinner", "keep off the grass". Now for the first time this kid has found somebody who doesn't give a shit about the rules. A friend who probably listens to him, who scares him, he likes him, and who definitely never says, "what the hell do you know, you're just a kid". They both broke out of prison."

A beautiful take has been given by Kahlil Gibran on the same subject. He says,

“Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness.
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.”

Certainly something for parents to think over.