Don't you forget about me

Recently This American Life aired a segment featuring Molly Ringwald's experience watching The Breakfast Club with her daughter for the first time. It was an interesting and surprisingly poignant conversation with her daughter (and, later, with Ira Glass) about seeing things differently years later through mama eyes, subjective memory, expectations, and the sometimes surprising messages and moments that kids internalize.

A snippet from the interview: 

Ira Glass: So this is the first time that you saw the film as a parent. Did you see it differently?

Molly Ringwald: Absolutely. I really did. I really kind of felt for the parents.

Ira Glass: For people who haven't seen The Breakfast Club, a lot of it is about the kids being disappointed in the parents.

Molly Ringwald: Yeah. And how alone and isolated and frustrated you feel with your parents. And now I see the movie and I just think, oh, their poor parents. And I think that when it was pointed out to me that the movie just talks about how all parents suck, you know, then I thought in my mind, well, actually that might be kind of good because then she can see that she doesn't have parents like that. And then she can, you know, appreciate us. [Laughs.]

. . .

What actually happens when she discusses the movie with her daughter unfolds both in the way she wanted and in a way she didn't expect. You can read the full This American Life transcript here, in segment three. Or have a listen (starting at 38:48):