As 'Fairyland' Proves, There's More Than One Way to Raise a Child

Question: How would I most like to be remembered?

Answer: As a good father. Everything else is cherry on top of the cake. It seems I’ve done all right considering how well the two young women I raised are doing. 

I never found parenting terribly difficult though admittedly this is in large part due to my wife who has always been  such an incredibly good mother. To me the first rule of parenting is: do no harm. This is a rule that — sadly — my mother violated in spades due to her mental illness. The second rule is to love your children unconditionally. That should be fairly simple. There are other rules but those first two are far and away the most important and all the others should fall into place if you practice one and two.

Parenting was very much on my mind when I saw the film, Fairyland on Sunday. The film begins in 1974. Steve Abbot finds out that his wife has died in a car crash. Left behind with him is their young daughter, Alysia. Steve and Alysia move from the Midwest to San Francisco into an apartment that they’ll share with others. It is a Bohemian atmosphere that is initially unsettling to the girl. But Steve thrives as he steps out of the closet and finds a lover among his flatmates.

There are trials and tribulations for a single father in the best of circumstances, when the father embraces an alternative lifestyle — midstream — and in doing so prioritizes his own needs, the child can feel left behind. Especially if at times she literally is.

Over the years the two clash over Steve’s unorthodox and lax parenting. Children like structure. But the pair love each other and Steve provides what his daughter needs. The proof is in what a fine young woman she grows up to be, eventually earning a scholarship to NYU and doing a year’s study in Paris.

This is director Andrew Durham’s feature debut and in it he shows great promise. The movie very much captures the feeling of San Francisco in the ‘70s and ‘80s as archival footage is seamlessly mixed in. We see scenes of the then burgeoning gay pride movement and the consequences of the AIDS crisis which devastated the Bay Area’s gay community. It would not be a spoiler to say that AIDS plays a significant role in the movie’s final third.

Alysia takes no issues with her father's sexuality (that she became aware of it at such a young age helps) but naturally has questions. Children questioning their parents' lifestyle is nothing new and practically became de rigueur in the Sixties.

But this more a movie about the many ways two people can love each other. Their's is a love that requires patience, understanding and flexibility (I guess to an extent all love does). The word unconventional keeps coming up in thinking about their relationship. There’s naught wrong with that especially when one considers how badly a lot of conventional parenting goes.

Alysia is a strong, resilient girl who grows into a strong resilient woman. It’s her father who’s a free spirit, vulnerable and often flaky. You might at times wonder who’s raising whom. But, as they say, whatever works and through their love it all works in the end.

There are a lot of ways to raise a child but you can’t do it well without love.