Why a Simple GreenHouse and a Magic Tree Became My Wake Up Call

Sometimes watching a Children's movie makes you realize how we are spending our lives, especially our family life. It makes you pause and ask yourself a difficult question:Are we realy going in the right direction?

My daughter loves movies, but she never liked adult movies. She turned 21 last week, and to celebrate ,she asked if we could go to cinema together. When I suggested adult movie, she immediately refused. Her reason was simple:"I don't like the scenes..I don't feel good..the language is too much.."

She loves fantasy, so I told her she could choose any movie she wanted to watch and we would watch together.

We decided to go by bus, so we took the bus to the cinema. There was still sometimes before the show, so she had snack while we waited in the cafe. When it was time to go inside, I bought her salty popcorns,her favourite. She was so excited that she decided to sit almost ten to fifteen minutes early.

To be honest, I am not found of movies at all not adult movies , not children movies. I find very hard to sit for more than two hours. Usually, my daughter and son watch movies with their dad. But this time, because it was her birthday, I went with her.

When the movie started, frankly I had hardly any interest. I was just giving company to my daughter. I was hardly watching. But suddenly few dialogues and scenes made me alert. Some thing in the tone, something in the message, pulled my attention. I told myself,"The acting is okay..but the message behind the movie is worth watching."

From that moment, I stopped caring about the acting. I started listening to the message the hidden message that was not for children but it was for us, the parents.

Those early dialogues made me realise how we families are spending our lives. Sometimes the acting made me bored again, but I still want to see what the writer was trying to say . I wanted to know the final message.

While wataching the movie, I started analysing my own family... our daily, weekly and monthly routine. And as I compared I felt someting was missing.

My mind drifted back to my childhood and youth. I remembered my lovely late parents and my siblings . I told my self , those were the golden periods. Life felt simple, connected, full of values. Now where the life is taking us? We are forgetting our values. Every one stay in their room. We see eaxh other briefly at breakfast, maybe at dinner. A few conversations, and then everyone disappear again into their screens.

A started concentrating deeply on the movie. Every dialogue felt important to me. it was like oxygen. something I didn't realize I needed until that moment. One scene made me cry...when the girls demanded WiFi and how the father desperately tried to work on it, the area where there was no trace of it. In otherwords, people had no access of it. Another scene touched me even more when one of the girl secretly wrote a letter to her grandmother, saying her life felt like a disaster, no WiFi and she wanted to escape.

Then came the turning point:how the girl realized her mistake, how the fresh air and open space became her her breathing room, how she slowly reconnected with her family. The mother in the movie also played an vital role, she sketched and build a small greenhouse. Yes a simple greenhouse, where both parents grew tomatoes with their own hands.Families came there not to buy tomatotoes but to breath fresh air, to feel alive again. That greenhouse became a symbol of peace, connection and healing.

As I watched the girl reconnect with her surroundings.I felt something shift inside me too. It was as a movie quietly whispearning to all parents:slow down,look around,your children need you more than your screens do.

I looked at my daughter sitting next to me...21years old, yet still choosing fantsy over adult movies because she wants to protect her heart and her mind. And I felt proud of her.Proud that she still holds onto values many adults have lost.

In that dark cinema hall, I quietly promised mtself something. I promised to bring back some of the simplicity I grew up with. To chat more as family, listen to each other, discuss. To sit together more. To step outside,breathe fresh air, and reconnect with nature. To create moments, not just routine.

Sometimes children's movies teaches adult the biggest lessons. And on my daughter's 21st birthday, I learned mine.

As we walked out of the cinema and back to the bus, I realised that while the world has changed since my parents raised me, the need of oxygen and connection hasn't. My daughter didn't just want a movie for her birthday, she was showing me the way back to the greenhouse