Why We’re Talking About Jaws—And What My Three-Year-Old Taught Me About Sharks (and Surprises)
We don’t usually write about movies here. But today marks 50 years since Jaws premiered—and I can’t let it pass without remembering a moment that’s been swimming in my memory ever since.
When Jaws hit theaters on June 20, 1975, my oldest daughter, Echo, was three years old. Like many three-year-olds, she had one deep and loyal obsession. Some kids latch onto dinosaurs, Scooby-Doo, or imaginary friends. Echo loved sharks.
Not just liked them—loved them. She knew their names from pictures and could even read them: hammerhead was her favorite. We were lucky to live just up the street from Cannery Row, Monterey Bay, and the Wharf. The famed aquarium hadn’t yet been built, but the rhythms of marine life flowed through our little corner of the world, and Echo soaked it up.
So naturally, when a movie came out about a shark, we took her to see it.
At first, she was spellbound. She didn’t move, didn’t fidget—just stared, enraptured. Until near the end. That’s when she started to sniffle, then cry.
“What’s wrong?” we asked.
“They're going to hurt my shark!” she wailed.
And that’s when it hit me: she’d missed the point. Or perhaps, more truthfully, we had.
She saw the shark not as a monster, but as the star. She loved it so much, she couldn’t imagine it being the villain. That moment remains one of the purest examples I've ever witnessed of how children see the world—not with fear, but with fascination. And how they never stop surprising us.
While our blog doesn’t often dive into film, we did publish one memoir associated with film. Joanna Charnas' award-winning book, A Movie Lover's Search for Romance, still delights readers with its warmth, wit, and honest reality.
We have, though, explored parenting in many forms, from humor to heartache to the unforeseen. Several of our award-winning books on child development echo the lesson I learned that day in the darkened theater: You never really know how a child will think, feel, or interpret the world. But if you listen closely, they’ll show you a new lens—sometimes one as surprising and tender as feeling protective of a great white shark.
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