4 Lessons I learned from The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1

Last weekend Breaking Dawn premiered, and like thousands of other young people I dragged my mom and dad to a theatre packed with other swooning girls to watch the movie with me

After watching love triangles (Edward, Bella and Jacob) and action-packed vampire brawls, I left the movie entertained, but realized that although I love the Twilight series, something about the Bella and Edward romance bugs me!

I know Breaking Dawn is a fantasy, which is one of the reasons why I liked it in the first place, but there are parts of the story that were too unreal for me. Getting pregnant is a big deal in real life so in addition to Bella and Edward’s wedding, shouldn’t we be talking about how having a vampire baby might not have been the best idea?

With this in my head, I decided to write some life lessons I learned from the movie that can apply if you ever get into a relationship with a vampire in real life.

  1. Communication with our parents is good. Bella decides to get married to Edward even when her parents aren’t exactly enthusiastic. Even though they are ultimately supportive, I wish Bella would have communicated with her parents about the seriousness of the relationship. Thank goodness Edward was a kind vampire...but what if he would have been dangerous or abusive? It would have been nice to give her parents a heads up in case he got hungry and decided to drink her blood.
  2. Consider the consequences of pregnancy. Bella decides immediately she wants to have a baby, even when Edward warns her it may kill her. The pregnancy results in Bella’s bones crushing as the baby gets bigger in her body, and ultimately results in the baby tearing through her stomach when it is born. Yikes! I bet she wishes she would have practiced safer sex when that pain kicked in.
  3. Think about your future when it comes to getting pregnant. Why didn’t Bella consider her future when it came to the issue of getting pregnant? Instead of agreeing to become a young mother, I would have loved it if Bella had said something like, “I’m planning on becoming an engineer and then eventually running as the first vampire president; motherhood’s going to have to wait.” Now that would have been something to make me yell, “You go girl!” and toss up my popcorn in the theatre!
  4. Try not to get pregnant in the first place. Bella gets pregnant while she and Edward are on their honeymoon, and I wondered why neither of them decided to bring up the issue of birth control. Edward has definitely lived long enough to know better! So it would’ve been cool if they could’ve at least shown their love for each other by having a conversation about birth control or mention EC (emergency contraception) if they got caught up in a hot blooded moment and didn’t use protection.

What are some of your thoughts on these issues that came up in the Twilight saga? Did you enjoy the movie? What would you do if you were in Bella’s shoes? Let us know by commenting below!