5 Lessons Parents Can Learn from the Wild Robot

The Wild Robot from Universal’s DreamWorks Animation is not just the year’s best animated movie: It’s one of 2024’s best movies, period.

Based on a novel by Peter Brown, The Wild Robot is a moving tour de force of animated artistry. Some of the images will stick with you long after the credits roll, and the movie’s tear-jerking coda might have even the most hardened adult reaching for a hanky. And for Christians, the film’s themes of purpose and sacrifice might well trigger a good after-movie conversation or two.

But above all of that, The Wild Robot is about motherhood. Sure, the movie might have plenty to make the kids in the audience smile and laugh, but make no mistake: Director Chris Sanders made this movie for the moms.

And boy, does The Wild Robot pack an emotional wallop. It shows a mother’s journey from the moment when she first becomes one to the day when her child flies away (in this case, quite literally). And along each step along this most precious of paths, the film has lessons to offer.

The Wild Robot contains more than five such lessons, by the way. Watch the movie, and you can probably come up with plenty more. (And honestly, you probably should watch before you read any farther.) But here are five messages that especially struck me.

1. You’re Protecting Your Child from a Cruel, Cold World. Take That Job Seriously.

ROZZUN 7134, the robot we come to know as Roz, was never supposed to be in that huge, human-free forest. She was made to help humans, after all—help them draw up grocery lists and make dentist appointments. But her plane crashes on this primitive island; and with no humans in sight, she immediately tries to see what assistance she can give to the forest’s animals. And those animals? Distinctly unimpressed.  

But then, out of a moment of tragedy, she finds her purpose: a tiny, unbroken egg.

Almost immediately, a hungry fox grabs the egg; it’s only after a titanic struggle that Roz rescues the egg from the fox’s jaws and, in short order, watches the tiny gosling inside break out.

But the fox isn’t the only thing that might want to make a snack of Roz’s newfound purpose. Everything on the island seems set on turning the gosling, soon to be named Brightbill, into an afternoon snack. The fox, named Fink, decides to give the innocent robot a lesson or two of his own. He tells her that’s just the way it is.

“You need to learn how things work on this island,” he says, grabbing a crab and tossing it into a pool of boiling water. “Me, the bear, everybody. We’re all just trying to survive—and kindness is not a survival skill.”

Except that it is. We see Roz repeatedly live out this unexpected truth during the film. It is, indeed, her kindness that keeps Brightbill alive in his earliest days. Without that love and kindness, he wouldn’t stand a chance.

Mothers wear many hats. But the very first one they don is that of protector. From the very beginning, they make sure their kids are fed and warm and safe. They force them to hold hands while crossing the street. They make sure they don’t touch those pesky hot stoves. And even when moms know that their child is perfectly protected come bedtime, they dutifully check under the bed for monsters—just in case.

And if we lived in a society like Roz and Brightbill do—one without screens or social media—that might be enough. But sometimes we forget the other dangers we deal with in the 21^st century: They might not have teeth, but they bite all the same. It’s important to take those dangers seriously, too.

2. You Don’t Know What You’re Doing—and That’s OK.

Early on in Roz’s journey as a mother, she runs into a much more experienced matriarch: a wise—and wisecracking–possum, who has seven young ones of her own. Roz tells the possum of her unexpected woes. The gosling, Roz complains, “makes simple tasks more difficult or impossible!” And she feels way out of her depth.

“I don’t have the programming to be a mother,” Roz sighs.

“No one does,” the possum tells her. “We just have to do the best we can.”

Ain’t that the truth?

I’ve never been a mother, obviously. But I have been (and am) a dad. And I remember, after my wife and I had our first baby, how we walked out of the hospital with a new, squalling family member and felt completely overwhelmed. That’s it? I remember thinking. They’re really going to trust us with this helpless little kid? How is it that TVs come with a 200-page instruction manual and, when you walk out with a baby, they give you a pamphlet on breastfeeding?

I don’t think my wife and I were unusual. Sure, thousands of books have been written about motherhood. Countless friends and family members try to tell expectant mothers what they can … well, expect. But you can’t know what it’s like—not really—until you become one. And every mother, no matter how well-prepared she thought she was, has days when she feels  totally unequal to the task.

But moms, like their kids, grow. They grow into their job. They learn new tricks every day, new coping skills every week. Moms may make mistakes, but they learn from them.

And just when we feel like we’ve got this parenting thing down, our kids launch into a new phase. So we smile and sigh and start the learning process again.  

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3. You Can’t Fill Every Gap. Find Those Who Can.

In order for Brightbill to become a fully-fledged goose, he needs to learn how to do three things: how to eat, how to swim and how to fly. Roz and Brightbill figure out eating pretty quickly, as you’d hope. The whole “swim” thing proves to be a little more difficult. But Roz is able to download some human swimming instructions, and soon Brightbill is doing the breaststroke with the best of them.

But flying? That’s another matter. Roz can’t fly. Her programming doesn’t give her a clue on how to train a bird to fly, either.

So she enlists the help of someone who can: Thunderbolt, a falcon with unparalleled skills in the air. “Remember,” Roz tells Brightbill, “there’s nothing he can do that you can’t.”

Roz is a wonderful mother, but that doesn’t mean that she can do everything. No mom can. And when you know that your child has a need or an interest that you can’t fill, you should seek out someone who can.

That’s especially important for single moms like Roz. Families operate best when there’s both a mom and a dad in the picture. But when a father can’t (or won’t) fill that critical role, find other trusted folks in your circle to fill that gap: a grandfather. A friend. A pastor.

And remember that even when two parents are present, your child still might find an interest that neither of you know anything about. Find someone who does. Identify outlets for your child’s unique skills and interests. It’s not a weakness to seek outside help; it’s a strength. Give your kids everything they need to soar.

4. You’ll Make Mistakes. Apologize, Grow and Move Forward.

Those flight lessons with Thunderbolt come during a critical, and painful, time in Roz and Brightbill’s relationship.

Now an insecure teen, Brightbill understands that Roz is not a literal mother goose, like the other goslings have. She’s different. She’s weird. And a lot of the forest’s residents think that she’s a monster. And when he learns that Roz was responsible for the deaths of his biological parents—a tragic accident we see at the beginning of the film—he begins to believe they may be right.

So Brightbill confronts Roz and asks her about the accident.

“Did you do it?” Brightbill asks.

“Yes,” Roz admits.

Brightbill’s furious, and we can understand why. But we can also understand Roz’s heartbreak and guilt and sorrow in the aftermath. “I don’t think he will ever let us help him again,” she confesses to Fink.

But tragic accident or not, Roz is still Brightbill’s mother. She still has a job to do. And even when Brightbill wants nothing to do with her, Roz pushes on. She will help him even if he hates her. She will teach him to fly even if it means he’ll fly away and never look back.

We find two really important themes presented in The Wild Robot: One, Brightbill has reason to be angry. Roz isn’t like all the other mother geese, that’s for sure, and she was responsible for a cataclysmic tragedy. And let’s face it, we parents can make some terrible mistakes, too. We might say the wrong thing at the worst possible time. It’s easy to be overcritical or too lax. We can forget ballet recitals or miserably fail at helping them with their homework. To be a parent means to carry countless regrets. We live with the ghost of I should’ve. We do our best to protect our children from all the hurts of the world; but sometimes, we’re the cause of the pain. There’s no getting around it.

Still, Roz once again shows us what we need to do in the aftermath: First, we own up to the mistakes we’ve made. But we don’t let those mistakes paralyze us. We push on, and move forward. We, like Roz, still have jobs to do, and we’re not going to let anything—even our own imperfections—stand in the way of doing them.

Those regrets—those “I should have” moments—are familiar to us all. But we need to replace those twinges of guilt with “I will” moments. I will do better, and press on. I will teach my son, my daughter, what they need to survive and thrive. And maybe we discover, like both Roz and Brightbill discovered, that even our mistakes have meaning. That God can use all things for good.

5. You’re working to put yourself out of a job. And yet it never ends.

Early on, when Brightbill is just a downy gosling, Roz and Fink team up to tell Brightbill a curious bedtime story. And during that tale, Roz declares, “I will not leave until I have completed this task, which has delayed me, damaged me, and violated my protocols, potentially voiding my warranty!”

“Which is robot for, ‘She loves you very much,’” Fink tells Brightbill.

Despite many delays and damages, Roz completes her task. She teaches Brightbill to eat. To swim. To fly. And when Brightbill flies away, taking part in the annual goose migration, she’s … free.

But, of course, she’s not. She doesn’t want to be.

The day-to-day job of motherhood does eventually come to a close. And so when our children leave our house—to fly away to college or begin their own lives, perhaps as mothers themselves—our hearts overflow with joy, even as they break a little.

The Wild Robot presents motherhood as a gift

But the role of motherhood? It never ends. Mothers are mothers until the end of their days and beyond. You can’t protect your kids like you used to when they were six—no matter how much you wish you could. You won’t necessarily teach and coach them every day, tuck them in at night, or poke your head under the bed to check for monsters.

But kids—even big kids, grown kids—still need a mom. They need help. They need guidance. And even when the day comes when they’re protecting you for a change, remember: There’s still a part of them that would love nothing better than to sit in your lap and listen to you sing, read or pray.

Is motherhood a task? You bet it is. But as Roz discovers in The Wild Robot, it’s also a gift—one of the greatest, hardest, most beautiful gifts imaginable.