Don’t Blame the Kid – Life Lessons from DuckTales

Continuing in a series of looking at the classic DuckTales television series, a few of us have examined how it has shaped our lives.  Recently I’ve been watching episodes that contain Bubba Duck, a cave duck Scrooge unwittingly brings to the present.

Ducks on the Lam

This episode of DuckTales is actually a part 4 of a 5 part episode arc where Bubba is in the present and Scrooge is trying to obtain a diamond mine from Glomgold.  Through Bubba not knowing how to deal with the present, he accidentally lets the Beagle Boys into the money bin.  The gang of robbers takes over the bin and Scrooge’s money.  They convince banks that Scrooge is an impostor and thus he’s thrown into jail.  Bubba is thrown into jail also for being a public nuisance.

Scrooge blamed Bubba for all his troubles even before jail.  He was convinced that nothing was his own fault and it was all this young cave duck’s doing.  In the jail cell, McDuck’s conscience appears and tells him to stop blaming Bubba for his trouble.

Don’t Blame the Kid

The pivotal moment comes when Scrooge’s conscience points out that Scrooge would not blame his problems on luck or…”certain little boys.”  His conscience is saying don’t blame the kid for your own actions.

The way I look into it is his conscience is saying to not fall into feeling like a victim.  Before the conscience points out how Scrooge is acting it says “everyone has problems.”  Everyone does have problems.  How are Scrooge’s worse than anyone else’s?

I’m not trying to dismiss real problems of injustice, but more the feeling of “This day sucks because I got a stain on my shirt.”  I know I want to blame someone or something else for that stain, but not me for holding the cup of coffee so loosely.

Scrooge was trying to blame Bubba for his own personal problems instead of taking action to fix them.  He stopped taking the opportunities and decided to feel sorry for himself.  He was playing a victim for things he was doing to himself.

Acting like a victim doesn’t solve anything.  There are problems we all face.  If we stick to feeling like a victim, we’ll never move from that.  We can forgive (though I know it’s very hard at times) and move on.  We can also see that other people have problems and try to work with them to solve both.  Scrooge does that.  He recognizes Bubba has problems too and works to solve both.  We need to be more unified than divided, and help each other.

This great episode has stuck with me for a long time!  If you haven’t seen it, it’s available on iTunes and I recommend watching the whole story arc too.


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