I am here to promise you that you will have the opportunity to elicit paybacks from your kids. My daughter was born in 1993, not long after Aladdin came out in 1992. As a matter of fact, while I was pregnant, my husband and I were watching football one Sunday and the game we were watching was a blow-out, so we headed out to see Aladdin. When we got to the car after the movie, we turned on the radio to learn that the game had turned into the biggest comeback in NFL history. This is why my husband remembers that day…no other reason. Ask your husband…he will remember this game.

And so it was in utero that my daughter began dragging her Mom to every animated movie there was. When my son came along, he followed suit. Fortunately, in my opinion, Aladdin was the beginning of the heyday of animated films. A couple years later, Toy Story debuted and soon Disney and Pixar were in a death match to make the cleverest animated films. Parents around the U.S. rejoiced! While I really can’t complain because I did love some of those movies, I also missed seeing many, many movies that I would have liked to have seen in those years. I had to wait and see The Sixth Sense on DVD because I couldn’t very well say to my kids (then 6 and 4), “Hey, there’s this great movie about seeing dead people. Really, you’ll love it. Remember? Bruce Willis was the voice of Mikey in Look Who’s Talking and you really liked that when we watched it on TV!”

My daughter Haley is now 15. Over the past couple of weeks, I had heard rave reviews from people whose opinions I respect about this movie Slumdog Millionaire. It is rated R for some violence, disturbing images and language, but I can think of several PG-13 movies that were far more violent and disturbing and by the time they are 15, you are kidding yourself if you think a movie will contain any language they haven’t already heard. So yesterday, as I sat at the breakfast table, I texted her (she was upstairs in her room) to see if she wanted to go and bring a friend. Don’t laugh all of you parents of little kids who swear that you will NEVER text or e-mail your child who is in the same house. You will. Trust me.

It started out like all the other movies we’ve gone to. We stopped at CVS for candy. (Sorry, I’ll buy a soda and popcorn at the theater, but I’m not paying $6.50 or whatever for a box of Junior Mints!) We got to the theater early enough so we wouldn’t miss the previews and  could get our favorite seats, the ones where we can put our feet up on the bar in front of us. As the movie started, I got nervous that Haley and her friend she brought would not like the movie. (Yeah, like when I had to sit through Lady and the Tramp II, they were really worried about whether the chauffeur and wallet-bearer…I mean Mom…would enjoy it!) It took a few minutes, but by about 15 minutes into it, the girls were as mesmerized as I was. The movie was amazing and even the previews had us discussing what movies we would like to see…movies that I WANT to see.

This movie will stay with me for a long time. It’s not just that it is a great movie, it marks a transition in our mother-daughter relationship that I welcome almost as much as I welcomed the transition from diapers to the potty!

Di appears Saturdays on TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Di at her blog Live and Let Di.