Why do so many divorced parents in movies get back together?

I wasn't exactly excited to see "Mr. Popper's Penguins," but there it was OnDemand and an easy pick and better than seeing "Kung Fu Panda 2" again or trying to convince Lil E that some movie I loved from the 80's really is hilarious. 

In a nice turn of "Mommy and Lil E Movie Night" events, Mr. Popper ended up being funnier and sweeter and less slapstick-y than Jim Carrey can annoyingly be. The story was improbable but the penguins were cute and the storyline of an overworked, checked-out dad turning his attentions toward his angry and neglected kids is one we all can get, if even just a little bit.

It didn't have the visual amazement of "The Adventures of Tintin" and it didn't make me laugh out loud like (oh, I admit it) "Despicable Me." But it was good enough. Better than expected.

There's just this one thing.

The parents. 

Jim Carrey and Carla Gugino (who is ridiculously gorgeous in a real and lovely way and should definitely be cast as a leading lady a lot more often) play divorced parents of a teenage girl and tween boy. Without much explanation, it seems that they had been together for many years and were wedged apart by his intense work schedule and inability to tune in to the daily happenings of his family's life and affections. 

Over the course of Carrey's character inheriting penguins from his adventurer (and also absentee) father and Gugino's character pursuing her own big research career with a new boyfriend, the two are brought together, not surprisingly "for the sake of the kids." 

Of course, you know what happens next. The moments with hands hovering over a sick baby penguin and rushing about to find the angsty teen daughter a perfect dress for a dance and escaping the evil zookeeper in a limousine chase all lead them back to renewed love. 

The penguins fulfill the cute-factor. But the parents provide the confusion factor. Why? Because they have to get back together in order for the family to be healed. In order for the family to be a functioning family.

I'm not so naive to think that movies, particularly those geared toward kids, need a predictable arc, a tied-up ending. But as a divorced mama, I see this particular conclusion as more concerning than easy. Or sweet. Or satisfying.

We all grow up with unrealistic ideas of life based on a sparkling scene we see projected in front of us as kids. That enormous screen envelopes us and we believe.

I rushed home from seeing a"Grease" at the drive-in when I was seven, put on my tap shoes and watched myself in the mirror, fully believing I could sing and dance myself into a stunning popularity/red shoes-black leggings transformation. I held on to the scene from "Sixteen Candles" when Samantha Baker and Jake Ryan kiss while sitting cross-legged on the glass dining room table through high school like it was a guarantee that even nice girls have magic moments. I believed I had it in me to be Norma Rae. I was Winona Ryder's character in "Reality Bites." 

And so I can't help but wonder what my son thinks when he sees silver-screen parents reuniting after fights and heartache and divorce. Does he notice? Does it faze him? Does he ever conjure up his own plans for the ultimate Parent Trap? Does it make him wonder about his own split parents and whether the final scenes will be the three of us holding hands? That part of the script is just about as real as a house-full of arctic-imported penguins at this point.

Lil E and I have had many conversations about what happened -- he comes back to this question at different places in the four years since I packed us up and left the home where we lived, the three of us. In every conversation, no matter whether Lil E is sad or confused or curious or indifferent, I acknowledge: what happened was sad and what happened also led us all to a happier, healthier life.

In our home and world, a kid with divorced parents is normal and OK and sometimes, the route to a much more loving life than a home full of tension and untruths and arguments and other bad stuff. I couldn't have that for us then and I couldn't ever return to that.

I love that Hollywood has embraced single mom characters and one parent-one child families in movies -- one of the reasons I adore "Up" and warmed to "Despicable Me" and wanted Lil E and I to see "Where the Wild Things Are" together. But I am angry than divorced families are also treated as "broken" in so many other kid films and that fixing them is trite and calls for the parents getting back together. 

We will always be dealing with divorce in our family. It will always be an undercurrent as Lil E packs up his Daddy Bag for the weekend, navigates time with his other grandparents, watches how his friends' families are, gets to know the Not Boyfriend better, puts the pieces of his own childhood pain and happiness together in therapy or relationships or if he one day becomes a parent, too. But we will deal with it by being honest - sometimes it hurts, mostly it is healthy. We will cope with crayons and little notebooks of lists and books and sometimes just crying into each other's shoulders. We will have tough times in court and driving back and forth between houses and in managing different rules between parents. We will be grateful and prayerful and see the light and love of learning to say goodbye to one life in order to welcome one that fits better. 

But we won't ever be getting back together as a family in the way we were. No matter what movies say to my kid or me or any other person watching, that just is not a happy ending.

What movies have helped your kids deal with divorce or your own family situation? Which movies hurt?

Keep on:

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Sassy Single Mom Style: Do not dress like you're kicking a squirrel

The snowpacoplyse seems to have been delayed until April, maybe May, so stores and sites are off-loading winter gear like crazy to make room for all those adorable espadrilles that require 10 to 15 bandaids to wear and swimsuits lined with miraculously skinnyfying material that you will need a crane, a pair of tongs and your small child to get into. Before you invest your money in summer resort wear, sort through the winter clearance items for great deals on sleeping-bag coats and infinity scarves and, of course, boots.

But whatever you do, sassy single mamas, please be wary of the faux fur boots you can purchase for way-cheap right now. It's not that I don't love faux fur -- I will rock my gerbil-looking vest better than Rachael Zoe on a hot August day in LA. I just really, really don't want you to walk around in balmy 40-degree weather looking like you're carrying around a very shy Labradoodle on your calf (see below).

Or worse, like you've kicked a squirrel (see above).

Here, Captive by Fergie, $169 on sale for $79 on Piperlime. Above, Hurry Up by Chinese Laundry, $149, available to animal-haters at chineselaundry.com.

Be mindful of where that pelt of $4 fake mink? rabbit? alpaca? ferret? is situated on your shoe -- that's the very best advice I can offer. You may be thrilled to only spend $39.99 on a pair of $700 boots, but if the world thinks you've abused rodents in the name of fashion, it won't be worth it. Trust me. You do not want Ziploc bags of fake blood thrown upon your feet while crazy PETA protesters scream, "SQUIRREL KILLER!" at you while you're just waiting for the 259A Express bus. 

Luxury by G by Guess, $89 and on sale for $49. Ready for rodent-stompers at Piperlime.

You do not teachers thinking your family cannot be entrusted to take care of the class hamster over spring break because you're already wearing one laced up in your 4-inch-heel combat boot.

More Chinese Laundry faux-suede squirreliness, because it's just to good not to gawk at one last time. In  Modwestern-rodentia tan. 

You do not want your child to secretly fear that you've taken time-outs up a notch by maiming the neighbor lady's cat and jimmy-rigging it to favorite wedges like a mockery with every step, a whisper-meow of "You're next, small person who doesn't pick up their Legos and will fit perfectly across the tongue of my ankle boots. 

It's traumatic for everyone. Best to avoid all together, no matter how enticing the price tag. No matter how much you abhor squirrels.

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Climbing hills

I was on the Stair Master, sweating out stress I've accumulated for months, reminding my muscles how to work hard going nowhere on a machine, blasting Florence and the Machine through my ear buds, flipping through a magazine.

I was overstimulating myself into relaxing. It's a trick I play while I work out. If my mind is too quiet, I focus on each second that passes, each eighth of a mile I tick off. If there's music and magazines and maybe even the television, my mind eases into celebrity gossip and my body just does its work. 

On this day, relaxing into my exercise was important. It has been an incredibly hard month and an especially dramatic week. I was using the Stair Master -- and baths and scrambled eggs and matzo ball soup and folding laundry -- in the same ways I use other modes of overstimulation. To let (my thoughts) go and (my legs, the stress) work itself out.

I climbed floor after floor on the stair treadmill. I imagined I was nearing the top of the Sears Tower as I flipped through recipes and deodorant comparisons and an interview with Kelly Ripa. Then there, right there on the very last page of the old SELF magazine I was skimming while I exercised, was something that fueled my carefully un-focused mind.

It was a small paragraph in a section called "A moment for yourself." Page 118. 

Be a hill seeker

Most of us try to avoid hills, but what's so good about flat? Think about it: flat tires, flat hair, flat returns and - the ultimate - flatlining. Life happens on the hills. They're opportunities to prove to yourself that you're stronger than you ever imagined. If you never attempt the ascent, you'll never know the thrill of swooshing down the other side.

Of course, it's magazine-speak: your cheery girlfriend's cheery text that makes you cringe a little and also tear up at the sweetness and good intention. That doesn't matter, though. Just like that text (we've all gotten them at some point, right?), it spoke to me.

The Not Boyfriend, in his Buddhist ways spoken softly into the Skype screen with one raised eyebrow that always triggers my instinct to pull out a pen and take notes, reminds me often, "The obstacle is the journey."

In my own church, the congregation's voices rose up during Ash Wednesday services, saying also: Do not let us be so burdened by the pain of today that we lose faith in the glory that shall be revealed tomorrow.

All these words came to be in different ways but they are all on the same page. All telling me keep climbing. Each hill is its own exercise. Pumping blood, flexing muscles, shedding stresses, easing mind.

Stealing magazine and tucking that one centering page into the pocket of my purse.

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